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For  Reference 

Do  Not  Take 
From  the  Library 


Every  person  who  maliciously 
cuts,  defaces,  breaks  or  ,n,ures 
any  book,  map,  chart,  picture 
engraving,  statue,  coin,  model' 
apparatus,  or  other  work  of  lit- 
erature,  art,  mechanics  or  ob- 
ject of  curiosity,  depos.ted  in 
any  public  library,  gallery 
museum  or  collection  is  guilty 
of  a  misdemeanor. 

Penal  Code  of  California 
1915,  Section  623 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

internet  archive 


http://archive.org/details/vanityfair429432newy 


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by  Annie  Leiboviii 

A  SPECTACULAR  61-ATHLETE  PORTFOLIO  OF 
AMERICA'S  BEST  YOUNG  HOPES 


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ATLANTA-BI 

Left  to  right,  star 

Alex  Rousseau,  Jenny  Thorn 

Dominique  Moc 

Nancy  Reno,  Nick  B 

Tinker  Juarez,  Jon  B 

Sheila  Hu 

Michael  Joh 

Seated:  Mark  I 

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-AS  DENVER  HONOLULU  LAS  VEGAS  MANHASSET  PALM  BEACH  PALM  DESERT 


YFAIR 


N°429 


May  19! 


Features 


ANATOMY  OF  A  CHAMPION 

Exploring  the  hearts  and  minds  of  two  U.S. 
Olympic  hopefuls,  David  Halberstam  discovers  what 
it  takes  to  go  for  the  gold 


12 


LET  THE  GAMES  BEGIN  . . . 

With  22  portraits  of  strength,  grace,  and  beauty, 
Annie  Leibovitz  gets  the  first  look  at  America's  most 
promising  athletes  as  they  head  to  the 
1996  Summer  Olympic  Games  in  Atlanta 


14 


MAD  ABOUT  HELEN 

Could  television  star  Helen  Hunt  really  be  as 

endearing  as  her  Mad  About  You  character,  Jamie  Buchman? 

David  Kamp  intercepts  the  sweetheart  of  the  small 

screen  before  her  first  Hollywood  action  film,  Twister,  from 

the  director  of  Speed,  sends  her  into  the  stratosphere 

alongside  Sandra  Bullock.  Photographs  by  Peggy  Sirota 166 

THE  MAN  WHO  KNEW  TOO  MUCH 

Marie  Brenner  investigates  the  web  of  deceit  and  fear 
surrounding  Jeffrey  Wigand,  the  tortured,  angry  whistle-blower 
who  has  taken  aim  at  tobacco  Goliath  Brown  &  Williamson, 
and  examines  the  conflict  at  the  top  of  CBS  even  as  the 
network's  60  Minutes  team  worked  to  expose  the  cigarette 
industry.  Photographs  by  Nigel  Parry 17' 

SCARLETT  'N  THE  HOOD 

Karl  Lagerfeld  goes  behind  the  lens  to  capture 

Andre  Leon  Tal ley's  modern-day  twist  on  the  Tara 

experience,  while  Laura  Jacobs  relives  the 

birth  of  couture  through  the  eyes  of  Scarlett  O'Hara 1 


A  MOTHER'S  TALE 

After  the  public  and  painful  trauma  of  her 

childhood,  writer  and  heiress  Gloria  Vanderbilt  thought 

she  could  not  suffer  a  greater  loss- until  the  suicide 

of  her  23-year-old  son.  Carter  Cooper.  In  an  excerpt  from 

her  courageous  new  memoir,  she  grapples  with 

that  ultimate,  unthinkable  tragedy 


19. 


Columns 


STEAL  THIS  ARTICLE 

Writers  from  Julian  Barnes  to  Arianna  Stassinopoulos 
Huffington  seem  unable  to  resist,  um,  borrowing. 
Christopher  Hitchens,  who  has  been  on  both  sides  of  charges 
of  plagiarism,  dares  to  doubt  the  sanctity  of  original  prose  .  . 


5J 


(Continued  on  page  14 


A 


T  FIRST  SIGHT 

Head  over  heels. 

Leap  before  you  look. 

Round  and  round  we  go. 

Ain't  it  grand? 

I  do.  Me  too. 

Etoile  by  Tiffany. 


}£$*$jmm0**> 


From  the  Tiffany  Etoile  Collection. 
Rings  in  eighteen  karat  gold  with 
diamonds  set  in  platinum,  from  $1,650 
to  $39,050.  Band  ring,  $1,000. 


Tiffany  &  Co. 


NEW  YORK       ATLANTA       BAL  HARBOUR       BEVERLY  HILLS       BOSTON      CHEVY  CHASE       CHICAGO      DALLAS      HOUSTON 

KING  OF   PRUSSIA       OAK  BROOK       PALM   BEACH       PHILADELPHIA       SAN  DIEGO      SAN  FRANCISCO       SHORT  HILLS       SOUTH  COAST  PLAZA 

TORONTO       TROY       WASHINGTON.   Ill         WHITE   PLAINS       TO   INQUIRE:   800-526-0649 


YFAIR 


May  1996 


(Continued from  page  11 


GRUMPY  OLD  MEN 

Aboard  Bob  Dole's  Leader's  Ship,  Matthew  Tyrnauer 
finds  the  G.O.P.  front-runner  struggling  with  his  identity, 
while  Pat  Buchanan's  rabble-rousing  heralds 
trouble  in  August.  Photographs  by  Jonathan  Becker.  .  . 


6 


A  QUESTION  OF  CHARACTER 

Evelyn  Hofer  and  Jim  Lehrer  salute  historians 

Stephen  Ambrose  and  David  McCullough,  who  joined 

an  upcoming  PBS  effort  to  push  aside 

political  dirty  laundry  and  search  for  the  true 

tests  of  presidential  character 


71 


BRINGING  DOWN  BARNEYS 

Gene  Pressman's  dreams  of  fashion  empire  have 

led  the  venerable  and  bracingly  chic  Barneys  department 

stores  to  bankruptcy  court.  Jennet  Conant  charts 

his  relentless,  extravagant  march  uptown  and  the  feud 

that  is  rocking  the  Pressman  family 


THE  BARONESS  REGRETS 

Bob  Colacello  remembers  Marie-Helene  de  Rothschild,  whose 
reign  as  Paris's  social  queen  has  come  to  its  end 


9 


THE  MURROW  BRIGADE 

In  an  excerpt  from  their  new  book,  The  Murrow  Boys, 
Stanley  Cloud  and  Lynne  Olson  recall  the 
World  War  II  glory  days  of  CBS  radio  correspondents 
Edward  R.  Murrow  and  William  Shirer,  and  how 
ego,  avarice,  and  the  advent  of  television  destroyed  the 
two  men's  revolutionary  friendship 


9 


Vanities 


RENT'S  DUE  ON  BROADWAY 

Craig  Sheffer  in  Purgatory;  Paul  Westerberg's  new  direction; 
Dole-mates— Republican  V.P  contenders,  by  Barry  Blitt.  .  .  . 


I 


HI 


Et  Cetera 


EDITOR'S  LETTER:  The  whistle-blower H 

CONTRIBUTORS 21 

LETTERS:  Korda  bleu 44 

CREDITS 21 

PLANETARIUM:  Escape  from  which  mountain,  Taurus? 21 

SOCIAL  STUDY:  Bob  Costas  calls  the  shots  on 

the  Proust  Questionnaire 22 

Printed  in  the  U.S./ 


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CONCORD  ON... 


OANCER  TERESE  CAPUCILLI    PHOTO  JOHAN  ELBERS 


THE  CREATIVE  FORCE  OF  MARTHA  GRAHAM 


"Dance,"  said  Martha  Graham,  "is  a  symbol  of 
i  performance  of  living." 

With  Freud,  Einstein,  Picasso,  Stravinsky, 
ot,  and  Gandhi,  Graham  is  cited  as  one  of  the 
■eating  minds"  of  the  20th  Century. 

Her  genius  "charted  the  soul's  journey."  And 
the  process  a  new  language  has  been  created 
r  dance. 

WATCH  STORE 

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visionary  company. 


Concord  Les  Palais 


CONCORD, 


Watchmakers!  lim  e  1908 

SWISS 


Graduation. 

A  clay  of  recognition.  A  time  of 
pride.  Pride  in  performance.  Pride  in 
accomplishment.  Pride  in  their 
futures'  promise. 

It  is  with  pride,  the  Movado  Watch 
Company  recognizes  the  achieve- 
ments of  the  graduates  and  those 
who  steadfastly  supported  their 
efforts. 


^Rogers  &  Hollands 

Jewelry  created  for  now  and  forever" 

To  place  an  order  call:  1-800-829-2600 


THE  ART  OF  PERFORMANCE:  THE  MAKING  OF  A  LEGENDARY  CLASSIC. 


The  Movado  Museun 
Watch  is  in  the 
permanent  collection 
of  museums  around 
the  world. 

Staatliches  Museum 
fur  angewandte  Kunsl 
Neue  Sammlung, 
Munich,  Germany 

Museum  Moderne  Kuns 
Vienna,  Austria 

Museo  de  Arte  Modernr 
Bogota,  Colombia 

Museum  Boymons-van ' 
Beuningen,  Rofterdonv 
The  Netherlands 

Museo  de  Arte 
Contempordneo 
Caracas,  Venezuelo 

Finnish  Museum  of 
Horology  Espool, 
Helsinki,  Finland 

Sezon  Museum  of  Art 
Tokyo,  Japan 

Kunstindustri-museets1 
Billedbog, 
Copenhagen,  Denmarli 

Musee  International    '■ 

d'Horlogerie 

La  Chaux-de-Fonds, 

Switzerland 

Museo  de  Bellas  fottx 
Bilbao,  Spain 

Design  Museum 
London,  England 

Kawasaki  City  Museu-j 
Kawasaki,  Japan 

Victoria  and  Albert    | 
Museum 
London,  England 

Museum  Ludwig 
Cologne,  Germany 


The  Museum  Esperanza  Watch.  l\ 
expression  of  the  Art  Decj 
Curved,  rounded  case  with  op'i 
link  bracelet.  Flat  mineral  cry| 
tal.  Stainless  steel  with  18  kai 
gold  micron  accents.  Swi| 
quartz.  Water-resistant.  $995. 

MOVAD 

The  Museum. Watch. 


^^^^ 


/  n 


IKIMOTO 

O        U       T       I       Q       U       E 


REVE  a  CO 


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THE        A 

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Editor  s  Letlcr 

The  Whistle-Blower 


riter-at-large    Marie    Brenner 

made  her  initial  contact  with 

Jeffrey  Wigand  during  what  was 

probably  the  roughest  week  of 

Wigand's  life.  The  former  head 

of  research  and  development  at 

Brown  &  Williamson,  the  na- 
tion's third-largest  tobacco  com- 
pany, had  become  the  target  of  a  blistering  campaign  de- 
signed to  destroy  his  credibility.  With  the  Justice  Depart- 
ment and  CBS's  60  Minutes  knocking  at  Wigand's  door.  Brown 
&  Williamson  was  working  frantically  to  discredit  his  claims 
that  the  company  was  capable  of  making  a  safer  cigarette 
and  deliberately  chose  not  to  do  so.  "He  sounded  extremely 
frightened,"  Brenner  recalls.  "It  was  an  organized  cam- 
paign to  put  the  emphasis  on  who  Wigand  was  rather  than 
what  he  knew,  to  turn  him  into  a  Mark  Fuhrman  so  that 
the  Justice  Department  could  not  use  him  as  a  witness." 
Brenner's  stunning  article,  "The  Man  Who  Knew  Too 
Much,"  on  page  170,  is  one  of  the  longest  and  most  compel- 
ling reports  in  Vanity  Fair's  history.  It  combines  an  intimate 
portrait  of  Wigand  with  an  in-depth  look  at  the  forces  be- 


hind his  long,  tortured  transition  from  tobacci 
executive  (and  smoker)  to  whistle-blowei 
Reporting  the  story  was  surprisingly  tougd 
Brenner  says,  because  of  "the  layers  of  ccj 
porate  secrecy."  But  her  article  is  full  of  ret 
elations,  including  the  story  behind  the  attemr 
by  CBS  top  management  to  kill  Mike  Wallace 
60  Minutes  segment  on  Brown  &  Williamso 
"The  campaign  to  discredit  Jeffrey  Wigand  proves  that  I 
need  a  better  way  to  deal  with  the  health  issues  that  toba 
co  raises,"  Brenner  concludes.  "The  information  that  Wigai 
gathered  while  working  for  Brown  &  Williamson  should 
used  to  help  solve  the  health  crisis  in  which  more  than  400,0'  i 
Americans  die  every  year  from  smoking-related  illnesses, 
has  been  suggested  that  the  C.E.O.'s  of  tobacco  compan 
be  granted  immunity  from  prosecution  and  brought  into 
national  effort  to  make  cigarette  smoking  safer.  Wiganci 
information  indicates  that  it  would  not  be  that  hard  to  dd 


S 


(^IfoiC&tU, 


tanity  Fair  presents  the  stuff  Olympic  legends  are  made  of:  standing, 
from  left  to  right,  American  athletes  Alex  Rousseau  (water  polo), 
Jenny  Thompson  (swimming),  Dominique  Moceanu  (gymnastics). 
Nancy  Reno  (beach  volleyball).  Nick  Bravin  (fencing).  Tinker  Juarez 
(cycling),  Jon  Bros  n  (rowing).  Sheila  Hudson  (track  and  field),  and 
Michael  Johnson  *  rack  and  field):  seated,  Mark  Henry  (weight  lifting) 

22 


and  Rebecca  Twigg  (cycling).  Photographed  in  Houston,  Te 
February  17, 1996.  Nick  Bravin's  and  Mark  Henry's  sneakers  by  Adi 
Sheila  Hudson's  sneakers  by  Reebok.  Michael  Johnson's  sneaker 
Nike.  Hair  and  grooming  by  Richard  Keo.  Makeup  by  Gucci  Westr 
Props  styled  by  David  Ross.  Styled  by  Lori  Goldstein.  Photograr. 
exclusively  for  V.F.  by  Annie  Leibovitz. 

VANITY  FAIR  /MAY 


GIORGIO  ARMANI 


FOULARDS 


Michael    Jordan, 

Olympic    Gold    Medalist, 

with    the    Olympic    Games 

Collection    Lightweight 

Backpack    Irom    Coach. 


Michael  Jordan  won  gold  medals 
in  both  1984  and  1992  as  a  member 
of  the  U.S.  Olympic  basketball 
team.  He  carries  the  Olympic 
Games  Collection  Lightweight 
Backpack  from  Coach. 

This  collection  of  special-edition 
sports-active  bags  features  woven 
patches  commemorating  past  or 
present  Olympic  Games.  Each 
bag  is  handcrafted  from  weather- 
resistant  glove-tanned  leather 
and  ballistic  nylon  with  gunmetal 
finish  hardware.  Available  in  Black  and 
British  Tan  as  well  as  bright  colors 
inspired  by  the  five  Olympic  rings. 


r^ 


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COACH 


ACOG  Lightweight  Backpack,  No.  689,  $282. 

To  order,  or  for  a  complimentary  catalogue, 

call  800  262-2411.  Also  available  at  Coach  stores. 


Baume  &  Mercier  &  Me 


18K  gold  jewelry  watch.  High-precision  quartz  movement.  Scratch-resistant 
synthetic  sapphire  crystal.  Water-resistant  to  99  feet. 


& 


Baume  &  Mercier 

GENEVE 


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NEW  YORK  •  NEWPORT  BEACH  •  ATHENS  •  MEXICO  CITY  •  LONDON  •  HONG  KONG  •  SEOUL  •  SHANGHAI  •  TAIPEI  •  TOKYO  •  AUCKL4 


OS 


Accessories. 


ind  yourself  atCneiman   marcus.    spring   already  has 


jisimjkiM 


(71 


Swiss  ingenuity.  Female  intuition. 

Wrap  your  wrist  in  something  captivating. 
Sophisticated.  Exclusive.  Precise.  La  Coupole  'Ceramique'. 
Sophisticated  because  it's  made  with  a  woman  in  mind. 
Exclusive,  because  it's  a  limited  edition.  Each  timepiece 
individually  numbered.  Precise,  because  it  has  to  be. 
Softly  created  from  high-tech  ceramics.  Scratchproof. 
Ingenious.  Each  hour  illuminated  with  a  diamond.  True 
beauty  that  lasts  forever.  Hugging  your  wrist.  Embracing 
time.  Embodying  all  of  life's  precious  moments.  Let  your 
intuition  lead  you. 


Utoiftd  Edithu 


RADO 

Switzerland 


II 


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ILLINOIS:  Smart  Jewelers,  Lincolnwood  (708)  673-6000;  NEW  HAMPSHIRE:  Barmakian  Jewelers,  Nashua  (800)  783-TIME 
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IMPORTED 


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Coniribulors 


Contributing  editor  David  Halberstam,  who  profiles  two  potential 
members  of  the  1996  U.S.  Olympic  Men's  Foil  Team  on  page  125,  is  an 

old  hand  at  the  subject  of  athletic  competition.  His  classic  book 

The  Amateurs,  about  the  American  rowing  team  in  the  1984  Summer 

Olympics,  has  recently  been  reissued  by  Fawcett  Books. 


Special  correspondent   Bob   Colacello, 

who  writes  this  month  about  the  late 
Baroness  de  Rothschild,  says,  "I  only 
went  to  one  party  at  the  Rothschilds' 
chateau,  Ferrieres.  It  was  in  the  1970s, 
but  I  can  picture  the  garden  as  if  it  were 
yesterday.  Marie-Helene  had  hired  the 
most  attractive  young  couples,  dressed 
them  in  exquisite  19th-century  costume, 
and  had  them  rowing  around  the  lake, 
while  the  guests,  who  included  everyone 
from  Jacqueline  Onassis  to  Catherine 
Deneuve,  promenaded." 

Husband-and-wife  journalists  Stanley 
Cloud  and  Lynne  Olson  met  in  Plains, 
Georgia,  while  covering  the  Carter  candi- 
dacy, he  for  Time,  she  for  the  Associated 
Press.  Together  they  have  written  Tfie  Mur- 
row  Boys:  Pioneers  on  the  Front  Lines  of 
Broadcast  Journalism,  which  Walter  Cron- 
kite  has  called  "the  'right  stuff'  of  journal- 
ism," due  out  June  5  from  Houghton 
Mifflin  and  excerpted  in  this  issue. 

Contributing  editor  Christopher  Hitch- 
ens,  who  writes  about  plagiarism  this 
month  in  his  "Fin  de  Siecle"  column, 
raised  literary  theft  to  a  new  level  recent- 
ly when  he  autographed  almost  200 
copies  of  Primary  Colors  at  Kramerbooks 


in  Washington,  D.C.  "I  signed  thenr 
'Anonymous,' "  he  reports,  "and  was  | 
gratified  that  several  people  came 
into  the  store  and  asked  why  I  didn't  | 
my  real  name." 


Writer-at-large  Marie  Brenner 
investigates  the  scandal  involving  Brc 
&  Williamson,  60  Minutes,  and 
whistle-blower  Jeffrey  Wigand  on  pc 

170.  "I  had  no  idea  how 
dramatic  Wigand' s  life  ivas,"  she  sa 

(Continued  on  pag 

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Contributors 

(Continued  from  page  28) 


The  anchor  of  PBS's  The  NewsHour 

with  Jim  Lehrer  writes  on  page  12  about 

presidential  character,  the  subject 

of  a  special  program  he  has  hosted  with  such 

noted  scholars  as  David  McCullough 
and  Stephen  Ambrose,  scheduled  to  air  on 

May  29.  Lehrer 's  most  recent  novel, 

The  Last  Debate,  was  about  four  journalists 

who  hijack  a  presidential  debate; 

his  next,  The  Master  Operator,  will  be 

published  by  Random  House  in  early  1997. 


At  age  16,  senior  editor  Matthew  Tyr- 
nauer  was  a  gofer  for  Mickey  Kantor, 
the  national  co-chairman  of  the  1984 
Mondale  campaign,  and,  in  1988,  he 
served  as  the 'assistant  to  Dukakis-cam- 
paign manager  Susan  Estrich,  after  which 
he  turned  to  journalism.  This  month,  Tyr- 
nauer  follows  Bob  Dole,  Pat  Buchanan, 
and  the  atmospherics  of  Campaign  '96. 


Contributing  editor  Jennet  Conant 

began  her  career  writing  about  fashion  and 

has  watched  Barneys'  march 

uptown  with  interest.  "It's  a  story  I'm 

covering  with  sadness,"  she  says  of 

her  article  on  page  14.  "If  Gene  Pressman 

had  only  been  willing  to  settle  for 

something  short  of  global  fame,  he  would 

have  pulled  off  one  of  the  most 

remarkable  careers  in  retail  history. " 


Photographer  Nigel  Parry  was  struck 
the  detectives,  the  Learjets,  the  eland 
tine  meetings,  and  the  fear  he  witness! 
while  taking  photographs  for  Mat 
Brenner's  story  on  the  tobacco  industi; 
"After  they  found  out  about  our  pt 
pose,  this  hotel  in  Kentucky  would 
give  us  a  room  in  which  to  shoot 
Wigand  until  I  threatened  to  pose  hi 
front  of  the  hotel,  with  its  name  in 
view.  Then  they  gave  us  a  room." 


Gloria  Vanderbilt  has  written 
highly  respected  memoir.  Once  upon  a  Tiri 

its  sequel,  Black  Knight,  White 
Knight,  and  two  novels,  Never  Say  Good^ 

and  The  Memory  Book  of  Starr 
Faithfull,  all  published  by  Knopf.  Her  ml 
book,  A  Mother's  Story,  is  a  moving  A 
account  of  the  suicide  of  her  son,  due  out  /| 
month  from  Knopf  and  excerpted  orn 
page  192.  She  is  working  on  Newport, , 

novel  set  in  the  city  where  her 
grandfather  Cornelius  Vanderbilt  built  t\ 
mansion  the  Breakers  in  1895. 


As  contributing  editor  David  Ka 
strolled  through  Beverly  Hills  w 
actress  Helen  Hunt,  his  subject 
month,  she  revealed  that  in  her  pre-A 
About  You  days  she  was  twice  arres: 
for  jaywalking  in  L.A.  "We  tried  fc 
third  arrest,"  says  Kamp,  "but,  alas 
no  avail." 


K 


32 


Susan  Kittenplan,  an  associate  edito 
V.F.,  wrote  about  comedian  Nat 
Lane  in  the  February  issue. 

Contributing  editor  Laura  Jacobs 

channeled  the  spirit  of  Scarlett  O'L 
for  the  May  fashion  romp  staged 
Karl  Lagerfeld  and  Andre  Leon  Tall 

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Behind  llir  Scenes 
PHOTO  FINISH 

All-star  photographer 

Annie  Leibovitz  caught  Americas 

Olympic  talents  at  their 

moment  of  greatest  promise 


all  it  a  one-woman  decathlon:  for  her  remarkable 
20-page  portfolio  on  page  140,  Annie  Leibovitz  flew 
28,030  miles  for  22  shoots  in  New  York,  Colorado 
Springs.  Atlanta,  Houston.  Los  Angeles,  Chula 
Vista,  Mission  Beach,  and  Soggy  Dry  Lake.  As  part 
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ball,  handball,  and  field-hockey  players.  Single-handedlyi  j 
Leibovitz  has  redefined  the  term  "Olympian  task."  □ 


Top,  Leibovitz  with 
the  USA  Basketball 
Women's  National 
Team  in  New  York  on 
October  15,  1995, 
and,  above,  with  the 
1995  Men's  Eight 
rowing  team  at  the    \ 
Olympic  training  center 
in  Chula  Vista,  California, 
November  21,  1995. 


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VAN!i™ 

Editor  in  Chief  GRAYDON  CARTER 

Managing  Editor  chris  garrett    Art  Director  david  Harris 

Executive  Literary  Editor  wayne  lawson    Executive  Editor  elise  O'SHAughnessy 

Features  Editor  jane  sarkin 

Senior  Articles  Editors  george  hodgman.  douglas  stumpf 

Legal  Affairs  Editor  Robert  walsh    Senior  Editors  aimee  bell,  matthew  tyrnauer 

Editor-at-Large  Hamilton  south 

Fashion  Director  Elizabeth  saltzman    Photography  Director  susan  white 

Special  Correspondents  dominick  dunne.  bob  colacello.  maureen  orth.  bryan  burrough 

Writer-at-Large  marie  brenner 

Special  Projects  Editor  reinaldo  herrera    Consultant  Style  Editor  andre  leon  talley 

London  Editor  henry  porter    Washington  Editor  dee  dee  myers    West  Coast  Editor  krista  smith' 

Assistant  Managing  Editor  ann  powell    Deputy  Art  Director  Gregory  mastrianni 

Associate  Editors  e.  a  osborne,  susan  kittenplan 

Copy  Editor  peter  devine    Associate  Copy  Editor  allison  a.  merrill 

Production  Director  ellen  kiell    Research  Editor  Patricia  j.  singer 

Deputy  Research  Editor  john  banta    Research  Associates  james  buss,  peter  d.  hyman.  thomas  rost 

Assistant  to  the  Editor  in  Chief  liz  welch    Editorial  Business  Manager  mersini  stratakos 

Market  Editors  tina  skouras.  mary  f  braeunig     Designer  mimi  dutta    Art  Assistant  john  dlxon> 

Features  Associate  beth  p.  altschull    Vanities  Associate  riza  cruz    Style  Coordinator  kathryn  macL: 

Editorial  Associates  felice  barash.  dana  n  brown,  lynn  Moloney,  honor  prouty 

Editorial  Assistants  kelly  biren.  darryl  brantley.  jessica  kaminsky. 

CR.MG  OFFMAN.  SARA  SWITZER.  KATHERINE  WESTERBECK 

Photo  Research  Editor  jeannie  Rhodes    Associate  Photo  Editor  lisa  berman    Photo  Associate  rebeccai 
Copy  Production  Manager  dede  DeMOSS 
Copy  Production  Assistant  martha  hurley    Art  Production  Associate  Christopher  george 
Contributing  Editors  judy  bachrach.  ann  louise  bardach.  Leslie  bennetts.  Howard  blum,  julie  burcii 

ANDREW  COCKBURN.  LESLIE  COCKBURN.  AMY  FINE  COLLINS.  NANCY  COLLINS.  JENNET  C0NANT. 

BEATRICE  MONTI  DELLA  CORTE.  FRANK  DEFORD.  MARCIA  DESANCTIS.  RUPERT  EVERETT.  BRUCE  FE1RSTEIN\ 

STEPHEN  FRIED.  LLOYD  GROVE.  DAVID  HALBERSTAM.  EDWARD  W  HAYES.  JOHN  HEILPERN, 

CHRISTOPHER  HITCHENS.  CATHY  HORYN.  LAURA  JACOBS.  DAVID  KAMP.  ED  KLEIN.  MICHAEL  LUTIN. 

DAVID  MARGOLICK.  KIM  MASTERS.  ANNE  MCNALLY.  RICHARD  MERKIN,  DEBORAH  MITCHELL. 

ANDREW  NEIL.  JOHN  RYMAN.  KEVIN  SESSUMS.  GAIL  SHEEHY.  MICHAEL  SHNAYERSON.  ALEX  SHOUMATOFF, 

DIANE  VON  FURSTENBERG.  HEATHER  WATTS.  MARJORIE  WILLIAMS.  TOBY  YOUNG 

Contributing  Photographers  annie  leibovitz.  Helmut  newton.  herb  ritts.  snowdon. 

JONATHAN  BECKER.  HARRY  BENSON.  MICHEL  COMTE.  DAFYDD  JONES.  FIROOZ  ZAHEDI 

Contributing  Artists  tim  sheaffer.  Robert  risko 
Contributing  Editor  (Los  Angeles)  wendy  stark  morrissey    Contributing  Stylists  lori  Goldstein,  kim  mei 
Director  of  Special  Projects  sara  marks    Paris  Associate  veronique  plazolles 
Director  of  Public  Relations  beth  kseniak    Deputy  Director  of  Public  Relations  anina  c.  mahon1 


Publisher  MITCHELL  B.  FOX 


ThePrudential  vfc 

http://www.prudential.  com 


Associate  Publisher  PAUL  J  turcotte 

Advertising  Director  nancy  c.  landsman 

Creative  Services  Director  jean  m  karlson 

Marketing  Director  edward  r.  b  whitaker 

Sales  Development  Manager  Patricia  foster 

Fashion  Director  caryn  j  martin    Jewelry/Watch  Director  linda  s  kloner 

New  England  Manager  peter  naylor    Corporate  Manager  william  j  wackermann 

Fashion/Retail  Manager  shelagh  nichols    Account  Managers  Michelle  kugelman.  Raymond  chelsta 

West  Coast  Manager  rita  m  chavers    Midwest  Manager  Pamela  dolby 

San  Francisco  Managers  deborah  lee  minor,  martha  perz  nora    Detroit  Manager  toby  jones^ 

Southeast:  Mudd  Media.  Inc    Florida:  Publishers  Reps.,  Inc.     Hawaii  maria  coyne 

Paris  sylvie  Mckenzie.  S  &  R  Media    Milan  mirella  donini.  Mia  S.P.R.    Hong  Kong:  Steve  Leece  Medid 

Business  Manager  joanne  Corcoran  hurley    Executive  Assistant  to  the  Publisher  randy  j  cunin 

Promotion  Director  gary  Armstrong 

Art  Director  megan  mardiney    Merchandising  Manager  Jennifer  orr 

Special  Projects  Manager  steven  t  porter    Associate  Merchandising  Manager  stacey  Herman 

VANITY  Fair  is  published  by  The  Conde  Nast  Publications  Inc., 

Conde  Nast  Building.  350  Madison  Avenue.  New  York,  NY.  10017 

Chairman  S.  I  NEWHOUSE  JR. 

Deputy  Chairman-Editorial  Alexander  liberman 


President  and  CEO  STEVEN  T.  FLORIO 


Executive  Vice  Presidents  Joseph  l  FUCHS,  Pamela  m.  van  zandt.  jack  kliger.  Charles  h.  townseni 

Executive  Vice  President-Chief  Financial  Officer  ERIC  C  ANDERSON 

Senior  Vice  President- Group  Sales  and  Marketing  MICHAEL  A.CLINTON 

Senior  Vice  President-Circulation  PETER  A.  ARMOUR 

Senior  Vice  President-Manufacturing  and  Distribution  Kevin  G.  HICKEY 

Vice  President-Director  of  Public  Relations  PAUL  WILMOT    Vice  President-Market  Research  STEPHEN  BLAi 

Vice  President-Systems  and  Technology  OWEN  B.  weekley    Vice  President-Advertising  Business  Manager  DONALD 

Vice  President-Editorial  Business  Manager  LINDA  RICE 

Director  of  Advertising  Production  PHILIP  V.  LENTINI 

Chairman-Asia-Pacific  BERNARD  H  LESER 

President-Asia-Pacific  DlDIER  GUERIN 


Editorial  Director  JAMES  TRUMAN 


VANITY  FAIR /MA 


HE  BON  JOVI  CONCERULIVE  FROM  BUENOS  AIRES  ARGENTINA 


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As  a  prostate-cancer  survi- 
vor I  welcomed  Michael 
Shnayerson's  article  on 
Michael  Korda  ["Harmed 
Lives,"  March]  and  was 
pleased  that  another  mem- 
ber of  our  "reluctant  broth- 
erhood" is  speaking  out 
about  this  deadly  disease. 

DONALD  F.  KALTENBACH 

New  Port  Richey.  Florida 

Is  it  fair  that  my  father, 
a  man  Mr.  Korda's  age 
who  would  shake  the  hand 
of  anyone  who  extended  it 
in  his  direction— a  social 
grace  Mr.  Korda  wouldn't 
deign  to  honor— suffered  two 
agonizing  years  with  a  form 
of  cancer  that  would  final- 
ly kill  him?  It  is  not.  Is  it 
fair  that  millions  of  people 
don't  have  the  luxury  Mr. 
Korda  had  of  choosing  be- 
tween two  renowned  cancer 
specialists  to  operate  on 
him?  It  is  not.  Is  it  fair 
without  meeting  him  to 
consider  the  subject  of  your 
article  arrogant  and  self- 
involved?  It  is  not,  but  I  assure  you 
many  of  your  readers  now  do. 

KATE  MOUGEY 

West  Redding.  Connecticut 

I  found  the  cheesy  journalism  displayed 
in  Michael  Shnayerson's  salacious  ex- 
pose of  Michael  Korda's  private  life 
deeply  disturbing.  I'm  talking  about  the 
way  he  relies  extensively  on  unflattering, 
unattributed  quotes,  his  insertion  of 
snide  asides,  and  the  acknowledgment 
that  a  particularly  nasty  piece  of  gossip 
is  a  rumor  but,  in  his  judgment,  appar- 
ently worth  repeating  anyway,  in  detail. 
To  name  just  a  few  sins  of  commission. 
I  thought  Vanity  Fair  strove  for  re- 
spectable reporting— which  is  why  I 
agreed  to  speak  with  Mr.  Shnayerson. 
From  the  start  I  had  a  bad  feeling  about 
his  intentions.  He  wanted  me  to  respond 
to  several  catty  criticisms  of  Michael 
Korda's  wife.  Specifically,  he  said  he 
had  been  told  that  while  her  husband 
was  in  surgery  she  was  out  shopping, 
and  that  in  the  evenings  she  was  dining 
with  some  mystery  man.  Since  I  was 
there,  I  could  personally  attest  to  the 
fact  that  Margaret  Korda  spent  long,  ex- 
hausting days  at  her  husband's  bedside, 
where  she  was  fiercely  protective  of  him 


Gun-shy:  Michael  Korda  with  his  wife, 
Margaret,  at  their  horse  farm  in  upstate  New  York. 


KORDA  BLEU 


and  hassled  constantly  with  nurses  and 
his  doctor,  who«she  felt  were  unrespon- 
sive to  his  pain.  As  for  the  dinners,  that 
was  me  she  was  eating  out  with,  as  a 
friend  of  them  both  and  at  Michael  Kor- 
da's request.  Not  one  word  of  this  ap- 
pears in  the  article. 

Certainly  every  journalist  must  re- 
serve the  right  to  draw  selectively  from 
his  interviews.  But  in  this  case  Mr. 
Shnayerson  was  clearly  choosing  those 
statements  and  anecdotes  that  served  his 
slant,  not  the  truth.  In  doing  so  he 
added  the  sin  of  omission. 

RODNEY  BARKER 

Santa  Fe.  New  Mexico 

When  Michael  Shnayerson  called  me  to 
discuss  the  story  he  was  writing  about 
Michael  Korda,  I  was  particularly  sensi- 
tive to  his  insistence  on  analyzing  the  Kor- 
da marriage.  I  tried— but  obviously  failed 
—to  make  it  clear  to  Mr.  Shnayerson 
that,  much  as  I  cherish  the  First  Amend- 
ment, it  did  not  seem  to  me  either  appro- 
priate or  good  journalism  to  exploit  the 
publication  of  a  book  that  he  agreed  dis- 
cusses candidly,  even  bravely,  the  author's 
experiences  with  a  debilitating  disease. 

SIDNEY  OFFIT 

New  York,  New  York 


Man-to-Man  is  an  honest  ac- 
count of  experiencing  pros- 
tate cancer.  It  will  certainly 
save  lives.  Michael  Shnayer- 
son might  have  reported  that 
important  story.  Instead  he 
sniggers  like  an  envious  va- 
let. Tacky,  tacky,  tacky. 

RICHARD  RHODES 

Madison,  Connecticut 

Michael  Korda  has  been  my 
editor  and  friend  for  more 
than  20  years.  I  and  his  le- 
gion of  other  friends  and  ad- 
mirers do  not  understand 
how  any  writer  or  publica- 
tion could  portray  this  bril- 
liant, graceful,  witty,  multi- 
faceted,  and  courageous  man 
in  the  manner  in  which  he 
was  depicted  in  Vanity  Fair. 
Similarly,  your  treatment  of 
Michael's  wife,  Margaret, 
was  beneath  contempt. 

MARY  HIGGINS  CLARK 

New  York.  New  York 


I  don't  normally  dispute 
magazine  articles,  however 
viciously  slanted,  but  the 
nastiness,  hostility,  and  dishonesty  di- 
rected toward  my  wife,  Margaret,  in  i 
the  March  issue  of  Vanity  Fair  demand 
some  comment. 

Leaving  to  one   side   the   fact  that  | 
your  writer  made  explicit  promises  to 
me,  as  well  as  to  Random  House,  that  | 
the  article  would  be  limited  to  my  ex- 
perience with  cancer  and  to  Man-to- \ 
Man,  the  book  I  had  written  about  it, 
then  broke  those  promises,  he  is  also 
guilty  of  shockingly  biased  and  sloppy 
writing. 

It  is  a  mark  of  Shnayerson's  hostile 
bias  that  every  unpleasant  remark  hef 
quotes  about  Margaret  he  attributes  toe 
unnamed  "friends."  I  doubt  that  any) 
real    friend   of  Margaret's   and    mine 
would  have  made  these  remarks— and  it 
is  interesting  to  note  that  while  there 
are  no  fewer  than  nine  of  these  snide 
unattributed  "quotes,"  all  of  them  insult- 
ing, hostile,  or  just  plain  wrong,  all  the 
attributed   quotes  are   favorable.   This 
suggests  to  me  that  Shnayerson  is  sub- 
stituting the  word  "friend"  for  what  a 
more  scrupulous  reporter  would  call  i 
"an    unattributed    source,"    merely   tc  j 
spice  up  his  story. 

I  write  profiles  myself,  for  The  New  \ 
Yorker,  so  it's  not  as  if  I  don't  know  tht 


46 


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difference  between  honest  journalism 
and  a  biased  hatchet  job  full  of  ugly 
personal  innuendo,  stale  old  gossip 
(gleaned  from  that  peerless  source  of  ac- 
curate reporting  Spy  magazine),  and  the 
kinds  of  errors  that  would  never  be 
made  by  a  serious  writer. 

To  take  only  one  example,  Margaret 
did  not  tell  me,  "I've  left  Burt,  I'm 
yours."  Shnayerson  did  not  get  this 
quote  from  Margaret,  he  did  not  get  it 
from  me,  nor  did  he  bother  to  check  it 
with  her  when  he  met  her,  though  he 
had  the  opportunity. 

Had  he  chosen  to  deal  in  fact  instead 
of  make-believe,  he  would  have  discov- 
ered that,  far  from  Margaret's  having 
taken  me  "out  of  circulation,"  we  have 
been,  for  busy  people  who  live  mostly 
in  the  country,  frequently  in  circulation. 
For  example,  he  quotes  one  of  those 
unnamed  "friends"  as  saying,  "He's  in- 
vited to  the  Kissingers'— he  doesn't  go!" 
Really?  On  those  occasions  when  we 
have  been  invited  by  the  Kissingers  and 
have  been  free,  of  course  Margaret  and 
I  have  gone,  with  great  pleasure.  We 
attended  both  the  dinner  party  at  his 
home  for  the  publication  of  his  book 
Diplomacy  and,  more  recently,  his 
70th-birthday  party.  The  Kissingers  also 


came  to  my  birthday  party.  Shnayerson 
only  had  to  check  this  allegation  with 
me  and  I  would  have  given  him  the 
dates,  but  he  couldn't  be  bothered,  pre- 
sumably because  the  truth  wasn't  of 
any  interest  to  him. 

Still,  what  can  one  expect  of  a  writer 
who  had  lunch  with  us  and  yet  couldn't 
get  the  color  of  Margaret's  eyes  right? 
In  addition  to  this,  he  describes  her  as 
wearing  a  cashmere  sweater,  when  she 
doesn't  even  own  one!  By  you,  this  is 
reporting? 

And  what's  with  the  guns?  Does  he 
think  Margaret  and  I  live  in  Bosnia? 
We  used  to  go  bird  shooting  together! 
Big  deal!  So  does  a  lot  of  the  rural  pop- 
ulation in  the  United  States.  Even  here, 
though,  he  can't  get  his  facts  right.  I  do 
not  have  a  "single-barreled  shotgun" 
above  the  fireplace  in  my  study.  If 
Shnayerson  weren't  the  kind  of  city  boy 
who  doesn't  even  know  a  mare  from  a 
gelding,  he  would  have  noticed  that  it  is 
in  fact  a  19th-century  Winchester  rifle, 
an  antique  piece  of  cowboy  nostalgia 
rather  than  a  working  weapon,  a  not 
entirely  inappropriate  gift  for  the  edi- 
tor of  Lonesome  Dove.  Of  course,  he 
could  have  asked,  and  gotten  his  facts 
right,  but  since  his  sole  purpose  was 


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Size  107/8  x  133/4  'yr^t  Published  by  Knopf 


clearly  to  write  a  hostile  piece,  he  on 
again  didn't  bother. 

The  fact  that  he  had  shotguns  on 
mind,  for  God  knows  what  reason, 
haps  also  explains  his  repeating  the 
S/jy-magazine  canard  about  Marg 
and  the  gun  as  if  it  were  the  truth 
was  a  fabrication  then,  and  it  still  is 

It  is  a  perfect  example  of  this 
sided  approach  that,  whereas  Shnayer 
treats  Margaret  with  such  indecent 
tility,  he  either  doesn't  have  the  gut 
name  the  "young  editor"  involved  or 
simply  determined  from  the  beginnin 
accept  her  view  of  the  events  witr 
questioning  her  objectivity.  I  wonder 

But  I  know  why.  This  piece  has 
the  characteristics  of  deliberate  cha 
ter  assassination— for  what  reason  I 
not  imagine.  I  don't  mind  att 
against  me,  but  attacking  my  wife 
matters  for  which  I  was  solely  respc 
ble  is  simply  craven. 

I  hear  on  the  grapevine  that  Shn 
son  has  been  telling  people  in  the  ti 
industry  that  he  didn't  want  to  inc 
this  material  in  the  piece.  "They  n 
me  do  it,"  I  am  told  he  says,  no  d 
afraid  that  savaging  me  via  Margaret 
make  whatever  his  prospects  as  a  U 
author  may  be  rather  dimmer.  I 
worked  briefly  as  a  reporter,  for  thh 
nancial  Times,  in  London,  and  the 
things  I  learned  about  journalism 
that  what  you  write  under  your  byli 
your  responsibility  and  the  measui 
your  integrity  as  a  reporter,  and 
above  all  you  have  to  get  your  facts 

I  have  respect  for  real  journalists 
Shnayerson  is  merely  a  poison  per 
hire.  It  is  worth  noting  that  whe 
was  picked  as  one  of  the  numo 
ghostwriters  on  Irving  Lazar's  auto 
raphy  Irving  and  Mary  Lazar  rejt 
his  effort  because,  as  Lazar  put  i 
lacked  "class."  I  defended  Shnaye* 
then,  but  Lazar  was  right.  Bitinj 
hand  that  once  fed  you  is  about  as 
ing  in  class  as  you  can  get— thougl 
as  bad  as  attacking  a  man  by  writin 
pleasantly  about  his  wife. 

MICHAEL  Kl 
New  York,  Nev 

MICHAEL  SHNAYERSON  REPL1 

regret  that  Mr.  Korda  insists  on  seeing  ti. 
file  I  wrote  of  him  for  Vanity  Fair  as  a  " 
et  job"  and  "character  assassination."  M\ 
the  profde  was  positive,  and  I  bore  no  a  I 
toward  either  Mr.  or  Mrs.  Korda.  Mr.  K 
own  anger,  however,  has  led  him  to  some 
charges,  to  which  I  would  like  to  respond. 
The  most  important  correction  is  that . 
no  deal,  explicit  or  implicit,  to  write  a 

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limited  to  Mr.  Korda  's  cancer  experience.  Mr. 
Korda  did  say  at  the  outset  that  he  preferred  to 
talk  with  me  only  about  his  cancer.  I  said  that 
that  was  fine,  and  that  I  would  fill  in  any  other 
information  needed  with  my  own  research  and 
reporting.  In  fact,  Mr.  Korda  spoke  with  me 
about  various  periods  of  his  life.  My  job,  in  any 
case,  was  to  write  a  profile  of  Mr.  Korda 
prompted  by  his  book,  not  simply  to  preview  his 
own,  well-told  chronicle. 

Mr.  Korda's  fulminations  about  sloppy  re- 
porting are  based  exclusively — and,  if  I  may  say 
so,  rather  slyly— on  a  few  minor  points:  that 
Margaret's  sweater  was  not  cashmere,  that  the 
rifle  over  his  fireplace  is  not  a  shotgun,  etc.  Mr. 
Korda  would  have  had  the  opportunity  to  correct 
such  matters,  but  by  that  point  in  the  editing 
process  he  had  made  himself  unavailable. 

The  abrupt  end  to  a  cordial  interview  rela- 
tionship came  when  I  asked  Mr.  Korda  how  he 
thought  I  should  handle  his  widely  known  affair 
with  an  employee  in  1988.  Rather  than  discuss 
it,  he  responded  with  an  angry  lecture  on  the 
impropriety  of  making  any  mention  of  it,  con- 
cluding melodramatically  that,  as  far  as  he  was 
concerned,  our  conversation  had  never  taken 
place.  Nor  did  Mr.  Korda  choose  to  give  his 
account  of  the  affair  in  his  letter  to  the  editor  of 
Vanity  Fair,  although  he  implies  misleadingly 
that  his  version  was  never  sought. 

I  included  the  affair  because  of  the  way  it  ended. 
That  the  young  editor  in  question  should  have  been 
fired  immediately  after  the  end  of  her  involvement 
with  Mr.  Korda,  who  delegated  the  task  to  another 
executive  and  never  spoke  to  her  again,  seemed  to 
me,  to  use  Mr.  Korda's  word,  craven.  Certainly  it 
was  a  key  to  Mr.  Korda's  character. 

Mr.  Korda  suggests  I  lacked  the  "guts"  to 
name  the  young  editor  in  question.  In  fact  her 
name  wasn  't  mentioned  because  she  was  a  victim 
who  had.  I  felt,  suffered  enough.  He  says  1  repeat- 
ed as  truth  the  rumor  about  Margaret  wielding  a 
gun  when  she  learned  of  the  affair;  in  the  profile, 
I  call  the  story  a  "rumor"  and  say  that  "probably 
it  was  a  detail  added  by  those  telling  the  tale  to 
heighten  the  drama."  Certainly  the  debate  about 
when  a  rumor  becomes  reportable  is  real  and 
unresolved  in  the  press;  in  this  case,  after  a  dozen 
sources  inside  and  outside  Simon  &  Schuster 
brought  up  the  gun  story  unprompted,  I  began  to 
feel  the  rumor  was  part  of  Mr.  Korda's  story. 

Mr.  Korda  also  suggests  that  I  told  mutual 
friends  I  was  "forced"  to  include  the  affair  in  my 
story.  In  fact,  Mr.  Korda  prodded  several  high- 
placed  publishing  figures  to  call  me  and  the  edi- 
tor of  this  magazine  in  a  blunt  lobbying  cam- 
paign to  have  the  incident  omitted.  And  I  didn  't 
then  and  don't  now  duck  responsibility  for  how 
the  profile  turned  out. 

As  for  the  charge  that  I  attacked  Mr.  Korda 's 
wife,  Margaret,  I  would  point  out  that  the  most 
negative  characterizations  of  her— namely,  her 
unsympathetic  behavior  after  her  husband's  diag- 
nosis and  her  reluctance  to  be  his  primary  care- 


taker after  his  operation— come  straight  out 
Mr.  Korda's  own  book.  Those  descriptions  w 
what  raised  my  curiosity  about  Mr.  Kara 
marriage  in  the  first  place,  and  led  me  to  speak 
nearly  50  of  the  Kordas'  friends  and  colleag. 
about  it.  I  also  let  Mrs.  Korda  speak  for  herse, 

Of  the  correspondents  whose  letters  accompc 
Mr.  Korda's  on  these  pages,  several,  as  it  hi1 
pens,  are  admirable  examples  of  Mr.  Kora 
dictum  that  writers  ought  not  bite  the  hand  t 
feeds  them.  Mary  Higgins  Clark,  Rodney  B 
ker,  and  Richard  Rhodes  are  published  by  i 
Korda;  so  is  Sidney  Offit's  wife.  The  only  spei 
charge  in  them  is  made  by  Mr.  Barker,  who 
I  failed  to  include  his  observations  ah 
Margaret  in  the  hospital.  I  did  use  his  post 
observation  that  Margaret  rose  to  the  occasion 
the  hospital,  along  with  his  sympathetic 
about  the  Kordas'  marriage.  Actually  I  reg 
ted  that  space  considerations  forced  me  to  L 
out  another  of  his  observations,  which  I  tho, 
went  right  to  the  point.  "Let's  face  it,"  he  sat 
the  Kordas.  "They're  both  pretty  self -absorb 

To  abet  his  campaign,  Mr.  Korda  appan 
ly  distributed  his  letter  to  a  wide  circle  of  frit 
and  colleagues.  Some  of  the  notes  ofsympath 
received— and  triumphantly  faxed  on  to  n 
are,  to  say  the  least,  odd.  Mort  Zucker. 
wrote,  "There  is  something  so  corrosive  a 
publications  like  Vanity  Fair,  so  poisonou 
their  mindset  that  you  are  almost  baffled  by 
to  cope  with  the  gratuitous  kind  of  insults 
pains  that  they  bring  about.  I  cannot  tell 
how  much  I  join  you  in  your  anger  ton 
Vanity  Fair  and  other  publications  like  th, 
a  curious  attitude  for  a  publisher  to  have, 
one  which  the  employees  of  his  various  pub 
tions  might  note.  Julie  Baumgold's  symfi 
note  was  merely  a  preamble  to  her  offer  to 
"future  Korda  pieces,  bios,  miniseries,  etc' 
her  report  that  she  has  "a  second  novel 
would  love  you  to  look  at  it  some  time." 

As  I  tried  to  understand  Mr.  Korda  ft 
profile,  I  found  that  some  of  the  most  i 
insights  came  from  his  own  early  books  on 
chauvinism  and  power.  Here's  one  more, 
Power!  How  to  Get  It,  How  to  Use  It: 
essence  of  power  is  the  ability  to  cope  wh 
demands  of  life,  not  to  react  like  a  param 
every  real  or  imagined  threat,  or  waste  om 
and  energy  trying  to  submit  everything  to 
own  control. . . .  It  is  one  thing  to  have  a  st 
order,  but  quite  another  to  impose  that  st 
order  on  the  rest  of  the  world—  no  amo, 
power  is  sufficient  for  that,  and  one  can  on 
in  the  attempt." 


Letters  to  the  editor  should  be  sent  wi  | 
writer's  name,  address,  and  daytime 
number  to:  The  Editor,  Vanity  Fair,  350 1 
ison  Avenue,  New  York,  New  York  1001 
dress  electronic  mail  to  vfmail@vf.con  | 
letters  chosen  for  publication  may  be 
for  length  and  clarity. 

VANITY  FAIR  /M. 


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Fni  lie  Mi1 
STEAL  THIS  ARTICLE 

Forget  the  tiny  brouhaha 
over  Ruth  Shalit  s  borrowings 

in  The  New  Republk — 
there  are  bigger  and  better 

plagiarists  out  there: 

Julian  Barnes,  T.  S.  Eliot, 

and  Martin  Luther  King  Jr., 

to  name  just  a  few 

BY  CHRISTOPHER  HITCHENS 


Did  poet  madison 

[inset,  left]  pr 

inspiration  for  T.  S.  i 

"The  Waste  I- 

Pundit  Norman  Pod 

[bottom  right]  p 

useful  to  colu 

Taki  Theodoraco 

[bottom 


How  well  I  remember  the 
sweetness  of  it.  I  was  sit- 
ting on  a  plane,  reading 
a  copy  of  The  Spectator. 
Taki  Theodoracopulos 
had  written  one  of  his 
"High  Life"  columns 
taking  off  after  the  sod- 
omites of  the  Big  Bagel 
(as  he  thoughtfully  de- 
scribed the  gorgeous 
mosaic  of  gay  life  in 
Manhattan).  It  was  a  spirited  piece, 
made  no  less  so  by  my  growing 
conviction  that  I  had  read  it  before. 
By  the  time  the  plane  landed,  I  had 
attained  the  "Gotcha"  moment  that  is 
the  Nirvana  of  the  vengeful  reader.  It 
took  me  only  an  hour  to  get  a  fax  of 
the  "original  article"  (by  Norman  Pod- 
horetz  in  the  New  York  Post  a  few 
weeks  previously),  compare  the  sen- 
tences word  for  word,  and  fire  off  an 
extremely  contented  and  self-righteous 
letter  to  the  editor  of  The  Spectator.  I 
knew  that  he  would  have  no  choice  but 
to  print  it,  and  Taki  and  I  were  not  get- 
ting on  very  well  at  the  time,  so  it  was 
one  of  the  most  chore -free  pieces  of  un- 
paid writing  that  I  have  ever  done. 

Dear  reader,  mark  the  sequel.  Not 
many  years  later  I  wrote  a  strangely 
neglected  book  on  the  sculpture  of  the 
Parthenon.  Reviewing  this  learned  yet 
passionate  text,  Tlie  Spectator's  critic 
was  good  enough  to  notice  a  paragraph 
of  mine  about  the  arrangement  of  cer- 

58 


tain  ancient  stones. 
With  a  maddening 
loftiness,  he  com- 
pared it  to  another 
paragraph,  written 
by  quite  another 
author  in  quite  an- 
other book,  and 
found  it  disconcert- 
ingly similar.  Well, 
I  mean  to  say,  that 
was  an  entirely  different  matter. 

Once  again  I  found  myself  writing 
(and  once  again,  revoltingly,  without 
any  suggestion  of  payment)  a  letter 
to  the  editor  of  this  irresponsible  mag- 
azine. The  case  was  quite  clear  and 
the  misunderstanding  laughably  self- 
evident  to  any  serious  reader.  Both  I 
and  Mr.  William  St.  Clair-this  was  the 
name  of  the  other  author— had  obvious- 


ly drawn  on  the  sail] 
original  eyewitness  i 
scription  of  the  Acr< 
olis.  What  could 
more  natural  than  til 
both  of  us,  commit! 
scholars  in  our  diff 
ent  ways,  should  ha 
summarized  the  sa 
source  in  much 
same  fashion?  I  nc 
hardly  say  that 
was  the  end  of  the  ? 
ry,  except  that  I  s 
wake  up  whimpering  about  it. 

Plagiarism.  A  nasty  little  word.  In; 
world  of  classical  antiquity  (not  thi 
have  any  great  desire  to  bring  that  up 
over  again)  the  word  plagiarius,  wh 
to  Cicero  meant  manstealer  or  kidri 
per,  was  used  by  Martial  to  denot 
literary  thief.  Ever  since,  the  crime 
haunted  writers  of  all  calibers. 
Only  a  few  weeks  ago,  Julian  Bai 

VANITY  FAIR /MAY 


r 


f 


■:-<:^'  , 


Dune  -  the  moment, 
the  memory,  the  dream. 


(christian  JJior 

BOUTIQUE     ^ 

NEW    YORK      10S   ANGELES      HAWAII 


Mil  III'  JilMI' 


received  a  rather  tepid  review  in  The 
Times  Literary  Supplement  of  his  new 
short-story  collection,  Cross  Channel. 
The  reviewer  compared  its  style  unfa- 
vorably with  a  "resonant  image"  in 
Barnes's  earlier  novel  Flaubert's  Parrot: 
"A  pier  is  a  disappointed  bridge."  Then 
came  one  of  those  fearful  letters,  point- 
ing out  (doubtless  to  the  discomfiture 
also  of  the  reviewer,  who  hadn't  noticed 
it)  that  the  line  was  from  James  Joyce's 
Ulysses.  So  the  question  is:  Did  Barnes 
pick  up  this  happy  phrase  subliminally, 
did  he  "annex"  it  for  his  own  purposes, 
or  did  he  simply  assume  that  any  liter- 
ate reader  would  spot  the  reference?  I 
should  say  that  this  is  one  of  the  public 
questions  most  dreaded  by  writers  of 
fiction,  the  other  being  the  equally 
knowing  one  about  how  much  of  their 
work  is  "autobiographical." 

An  enterprising  editor  could  probably 
appoint  a  special  correspondent  to 
cover  plagiarism,  and  see  the  poor 
guy  or  gal  worked  nearly  to  death. 
Think  only  of  monitoring  Ruth  Shalit, 
whose  secret  until  recently  was  that  she 
filched  sentences  from  writers— such  as 
Fred  Barnes  and  David  Broder  whom 
she  could  be  reasonably  sure  nobody 
else  was  bothering  to  read.  Clever,  but, 
as  events  have  proved,  not  quite  clever 
enough.  The  New  Yorker's  February  ap- 
preciation of  Joseph 
Brodsky  said  that  he 
had  had  a  heart  at- 
tack coming  as  surely 
as  next  Christmas,  a 
memorable  line  ap- 
propriated (honestly 
enough  I  thought) 
from  Philip  Larkin's 
All  What  Jazz.  Ari- 
anna  Stassinopoulos 
Huffington,  author  of 
Picasso:  Creator  and 
Destroyer,  put  herself 
memorably  in  the 
debt  of  Ms.  Lydia  Gas- 
man, who  seems  to 
have  written  an  earli- 


It  was  a  spirited 

piece,  made  no  less  so 

by  my  growing 

conviction  that  I  had 

read  it  before. 


er  study  of  Picasso  which  the  divine 
Arianna  did  not  acquire  by  transcen- 
dental means.  And  while  we  are  on  the 
subject  of  My  Sweet  Lord— a  favored 
Huffington  invocation— we  find  that 
not  even  the  world  of  music  is  immune. 
George  Harrison  had  to  pay  a  tidy  sum 
to  the  Chiffons,  whose  1963  smash 
"He's  So  Fine"  was  ruled  by  a  court  to 
be  the  melodic  ancestor  of  George's 
1971  chartbuster.  Experts  have  been  re- 
tained on  all  sides  to  debate  whether 
Sir  Andrew  Lloyd  Webber  ran  out  of 
inspiration  and  went  with  good  old 
Puccini  for  some  moments  in  The 
Phantom  of  the  Opera. 

Many  people  believe  that  they  could 
easily  hold  down  that  job  on  the  plagia- 
rism desk.  But  if  you  think  you  know 
what  plagiarism  is,  you  are  making  a 
very  large  claim— the  claim  that  you 
know  originality  when  you  see  it.  Apart 
from  being  the  small  change,  and  occa- 
sionally the  major  currency,  of  argu- 
ments within  the  worlds  of  letters  and 
journalism,  what  we  call  plagiarism  is 
a  subject  with  deep  roots  in  our  litera- 
ture and  huge  implications  for  the  crafts 
of  writing  and  speaking.  Let  me  start 
with  a  relatively  shattering  example: 

I  looked  at  the  man;  I  saw  him  plain; 
Like  a  dead  weed,  gray  and  wan, 
Or  a  breath  of  dust.  I  looked  again  — 

And  man  and  dog  were 

one, 
Like  the  wisps  of  a 
graying  dawn  .  .  . 

This   comes    from   a 
poem     called     "Waste 
Land,"  published  in  1913. 
With  the  addition  of  a 
definite   article   to   the 
title,  T.  S.  Eliot  pub- 
lished a  rather  more 
famous  verse  effort 
in  1922.  Eliot's  poem, 
p^HP^^^    which  it  would  be 
\  x  ||k     trite  to  describe 

k   as  the  birth  pang 
|   of  poetic   mod- 
ernism, contained 
the  imperishable 
line  "I  will  show 
you     fear     in     a 
handful  of  dust." 
It  also  speaks  of 


The  great  Scottish 
bard  Hugh  MacDiartnid 
(in  kilt)  made  poetry 
of  Welsh  writer 
Glyn  Jones's  prose. 


60 


m* 


"the  brown  fog  of  a  winter  dawn."  Set 
above.  That's  what  Robert  Ian  Scott,  ; 
Canadian  scholar,  has  done.  He  ha 
found  a  number  of  other  "resemblances.' 
Aside  from  the  title  and  the  imager) 
there  is  the  matter  of  Eliot's  access  to  th 
earlier  poem.  Madison  Cawein  was 
Cincinnati  pool-hall  cashier  who  died  on 
year  after  his  "Waste  Land"  was  put 
lished.  It  was  printed  in  a  Chicago  mag< 
zine  of  which  Ezra  Pound— Eliot's  frien 
and  mentor  was  European  editor.  Elic 
had  submitted  a  poem  of  his  own  to  tlw 
very  magazine.  Moreover,  in  the  sel. 
same  issue  in  which  Cawein's  "Wast 
Land"  appeared,  there  was  also  an  essai 
by  Pound  on  poetry  in  London,  which 
is  highly  unlikely  that  Eliot  would  nc 
have  wanted  to  read. 

Hold  whatever  thought  you  have  fc 
a  moment.  Here  is  a  quotation  from  D 
Martin  Luther  King: 

In  the  course  of  its  development  wes-J 
ern  civilization  has  shifted  from  a  cob 
nial  naivete  of  the  frontier  to  the  fa. 
reaching  machination  of  nationalism  ar  j 
from  an  agrarian  pattern  of  occupatioj 
to  the  industrial  one. 

This  comes  from  a  seminary  essi^ 
King  wrote  entitled  "The  Sources 
Fundamentalism."  It  compares  with  rej 
sonable  smoothness  to  an  earlier  tex 
which  instructs  the  curious  reader  thatJ 

In  the  course  of  its  development  we  J 
ern  civilization  has  shifted  from  a  co' ' 
nial  naivete  of  the  frontier  to  the  ft' 
reaching  machinations  of  nationalism  a  | 
from  an  agrarian  pattern  of  occupati* 
to  the  industrial  one. 

The  missing  5  in  the  King  versi- 
could  even  have  been  a  misprint. 

Moving  right  along,  we  come  to  t 
great  Scottish  bard  Hugh  MacDiarm 
Here  is  his  much-admired  poem  Perft 
published  in  1939. 

I  found  a  pigeon's  skull  on  the  machair. 
All  the  bones  pure  white  and  dry,  ai 

chalky, 
But  perfect, 
Without  a  crack  or  a  flaw  anywhere. 

At  the  back,  rising  out  of  the  beak, 
Were   twin   domes  like   bubbles  of  t 

bone, 
Almost  transparent,  where  the  brain  1 

been 
That  fixed  the  tilt  of  the  wings. 

And  here  is  a  passage  from  a  bo* 
The  Blue  Bed,  by  the  Welsh  writer 
Jones,  published  two  years  previous 


On  her  palm  lay  the  small  frail  skul 

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a  seagull,  white,  and  complete  as  a  peb- 
ble. It  was  lovely,  all  the  bones  pure  white 
and  dry,  and  chalky,  but  perfect  without  a 
crack  or  a  flaw  anywhere.  At  the  back, 
rising  out  of  the  beak  were  twin  domes 
like  bubbles  of  thin  bones,  almost  trans- 
parent, where  the  brain  had  been  that 
fixed  the  tilt  of  the  wings  .  .  . 


found  to  be  honeycombed  with  other 
people's  property,  and  he  seems  to  have 
had  some  very  indulgent  professors  in 
college.  It  has  even  been  alleged  that  part 
of  the  peroration  of  the  "I  Have  a  Dream" 
speech— the  part  about  "from  every 
mountainside,  let  freedom  ring"— is  lifted 
from,  of  all  things,  an  address  to  the 
1952  Republican  convention  by  a  black 
minister  named  Archibald  Carey.  But,  of 
course,  that  line  comes  from  "My 
Country,  Tis  of  Thee,"  which  King 
quoted  more  or  less  completely. 
And   do  you  know  how  the 


^.Promey'- ry  mountainside    Let     fxee-dom     ring! 

ils,  My  heart  with  rap-turuthrills,Like    that     a  -  bore. 

ir  tikeJLet  rods  their  si  -  lence  break/The    sound  pro  -  long . 

lit!  Pro-tect     us  -with  Thy  might  Great  God,  our  King! 


■\ 


LLiJJ&A  by 


Martin  Luther  King  stole 

brazenly  and  for  the 

better  from  one  of  America's 

best-known  anthems. 


These  all  look  like  pretty 
damning,  not  to  say  open-and-shut,  cases. 
Reputations  in  politics  and  journalism 
have  been  drastically  compromised  for 
much  less.  (Think  of  poor  Senator  Joe 
Biden  caught  lifting  a  speech  from  the 
born  loser  Neil  Kinnock.)  But  a  second 
look  discloses  a  lot  of  ambiguity.  Take 
Eliot  first.  Did  he  derive  "a  handful  of 
dust"  from  Madison  Cawein?  Or  did  he 
steal  it  instead  from  Charlotte  Mew,  who 
in  a  poem  written  in  1916  spoke  of  "a 
handful  of  forgotten  dust"?  Or  did  he  per- 
haps purloin  the  said  handful  from  Virgil, 
Horace,  Ovid,  John  Donne,  Walter  de  la 
Mare,  Alfred  Tennyson,  or  Joseph  Con- 
rad, each  of  whom  had  employed  the 
same  phrase  or  something  very  close  to 
it?  And  where  had  they  taken  it  from? 

One  might  also  want  to  make  the 
point  that  Eliot's  verse  is  much  more 
beautiful  and  powerful: 

And  I  will  show  you  something  different 

from  either 
Your  shadow  at  morning  striding  behind 

you 
Or  your  shadow  at  evening  rising  to  meet 

you; 
I  will  show  you  fear  in  a  handful  of  dust. 

Contrast  that  to  the  Cawein  stanza  above. 
What,  then,  about  Dr.  King?  His  vari- 
ous academic  dissertations   have   been 


Where  would  most 
of  our  culture  be  without 
borrowing?  Cineasts 
even  have  a  fancy  word 
for  lifting,  hommage. 


closing  passage  of  King's  speech  was  sup- 
posed to  have  begun?  If  he'd  followed  the 
typed  script  provided  by  a  virtual  com- 
mittee of  do-gooders  King  would  have 
said.  "And  so  today,  let  us  go  back  to  our 
communities  as  members  of  the  interna- 
tional association  for  the  advancement  of 
creative  dissatisfaction."  With  the  whole 
world  watching.  King  realized  that  it 
wouldn't  do,  threw  away  the  text  in  mid- 
stream, called  on  all  he'd  ever  read,  in- 
cluding the  prophets  Amos  and  Isaiah, 
and  changed  everything  for  the  better— 
and  for  good.  He  may  have  done  a  lot  of 
borrowing  in  his  life,  but  he  synthesized 
the  borrowings  into  something  higher. 

MacDiarmid  isn't  such  an  easy  case. 
He  didn't  dare  advance  the  defense 
made  by  some  friendly  critics,  such  as 
Edwin  Morgan,  who  argued  that  deft 
rearrangement   of  prose   was   itself  a 


form  of  poetry.  He  took  refuge  insteac 
in  an  old  stratagem:  "I  either  automati 
cally  memorized  it  and  subsequently  i 
thought  it  my  own,  or  wrote  it  into  one ! 
of  my  notebooks  with  the  same  result.' 
When  that  didn't  work  and  he  contin 
ued  to  be  teased  in  print,  he  resorted  tc 
the  argument  from  authority:  "As  Mr 
T.  S.  Eliot  said:  'Minor  poets  borrow 
major  poets  steal.' "  Actually,  MacDiar ' 
mid  got  even  that  wrong.  What  Elio 
had  said  was  that  "immature  poets  imi 
tate;  mature  poets  steal."  And  Elio 
may  well  have  knocked  that  off  fronj 
Coleridge,  who  had  observer 
after  a  lifetime  of  cormoranl 
like    theft    that    "the    Eight! 
|  Commandment  was  not  madi 
for  bards." 


A 

n 


good    rule    of  thumb    fr> 
young   plagiarists   starting 
out  in  life  might  well  b 
the  one  set  down  by  Georg. 
Moore.  "Taking  something  fror 
one  man  and  making  it  wors 
is  plagiarism."  To  "making 
worse"  one  could  add  "or  leat4 
ing  it  exactly  the  same."  Nex«| 
and  various  computer  syster 
may  be  making  the  problei! 
more  acute,  but  nobody  whw 
takes  either  their  own  writing  or  theei 
own  plagiarism  seriously  can  afford  to  §| 
about  the  place  saying  that  they  "fine 
they  have  written  something  compose 
by  somebody  else. 

When  Princess  Michael  of  Kent.  01 1 
of  the  Queen's  dimmer  relatives,  w*| 
shown  to  have  nicked  some  materiif 
word  for  word  for  her  biography 
Empress  Eugenie,  she  got  a  spokesmd 
to  tell  the  press,  "It  seems  that,  whtl 
she  read  her  notes  a  long  time  aft  I 
making  them,  she  forgot  that  she  h;i[ 
written  down  actual  phrases  from  oij 
of  the  books  she  was  using."  Seer 
madam!  Nay,  it  is;  I  know  not  "seemjil 
We  have  a  certain  respect  for  the  prl 
fessionalism  of  the  forger  and  the  coul 
terfeiter.  For  kleptomaniacs  we  entd 
tain  no  such  feeling,  but  rather  reseij 
ment  at  their  sloppiness— and  the  susi 
cion  that  in  some  pathetic  way  th| 
hope,  or  need,  to  get  caught. 

"Great     literature,"     wrote     Rob<| 
Benchley,  "must  spring  from  an  uphea1 
in  the  author's  soul.  If  that  upheaval  I 
not  present,  then  it  must  come  from  t 
works  of  any  other  author  which  happ 
ui  be  handy  and  easily  adapted."  Mati  J 
ing  this,  Dorothy  Parker  remarked  af  f 
some  time  on  the  West  Coast  that  t 
only  ism  that  Hollywood  cared  abc ' 


62 


VANITY  FAIR /MAY  1 


yas  plagiarism.  Where  would  most  of 
>ur  culture  be  without  borrowing,  adap- 
ation,  and  derivatives?  Cineasts  even 
lave  a  fancy  word  for  lifting,  hommage. 
Vhy  else  would  we  require  the  copyright 
ndustry? 

Originality  is  a  quality  so  rarely  met 
/ith  in  humans  that  when  it  does  occur 
:  is  often  disputed.  Sir  Isaac  Newton, 
or  example,  took  great  credit  for  pro- 
'ounding  a  law  of  planetary  motion, 
"his  was  to  the  outrage  of  his  rival 
{.obert  Hooke,  who  maintained  that 
4ewton  had  drawn  on  his  work  as  well 
s  that  of  others.  At  that  date-1678-the 
lodern  world  of  the  scholarly  journal 
nd  the  patent  was  not  yet  formed.  New- 
Dn  made  no  direct  admission,  but  did 
ictful ly  say  that  "if  I  have  seen  farther 

is  by  standing  on  the  shoulders  of  gl- 
ints." This  is  commonly  known  as  New- 
Dn's  Aphorism,  though  it  had  appeared 
s  recently  as  1651  in  a  collection  of 
roverbs  by  George  Herbert.  According 
o  the  magisterial  Robert  K.  Merton  in 
lis  labyrinthine  book  On  the  Shoulders  of 
liants,  other  claimants  to  the  coinage  of 
lie  phrase  include  Bernard  of  Chartres 
i  about  1126,  John  of  Salisbury,  Henri 
|e  Mondeville,  and  Robert  Burton  (he 
if  the  Anatomy  of  Melancholy).  And  this 


is  to  cite  only  some  medieval  and 
postmedieval  candidates,  since  the  re- 
mark was  probably  first  made  in  classical 
times.  Among  later  imitators  were  Cole- 
ridge—as usual— John  Stuart  Mill,  Frie- 
drich  Engels,  Frank  Harris,  and  Sigmund 
Freud,  all  of  whom  in  their  different 
ways  had  a  right  to  it,  and  some  of 
whom  (though  not  Mill,  who  had  read 
everything  and  had  a  conscience)  may 
have  believed  that  they  were  uttering  it 
for  the  first  time.  Thus  Newton's  most 
subtle  and  guarded  admission  of  a  possi- 
ble "debt"  is  itself  one  of  the  phrases 
most  frequently  "borrowed." 

A  decade  ago,  watching  Ronald  Rea- 
gan give  his  famous  speech  on  the  night 
of  the  Challenger  calamity,  and  wanting 
as  ever  to  resist  his  sentimental  appeal, 
I  became  convinced  that  I  had  heard 
his  closing  lines  somewhere.  If  you  re- 
member, he  spoke  of  the  dead  astro- 
nauts as  having  "slipped  the  surly  bonds 
of  earth,"  to  "touch  the  face  of  God." 
The  White  House  declined  to  help  me 
in  my  search  for  the  origins  of  this  cou- 
plet. I  finally  discovered  that  the  words 
came  from  a  sonnet,  "High  Flight,"  by 
John  Gillespie  Magee  Jr.,  which  was 
read  out  as  the  regular  closedown  on 
Washington's  Channel  9  TV  station. 


Not  a  bad  little  story,  I  thought:  Ron 
falling  asleep  in  front  of  the  TV, 
dimly  catching  some  rather  saccha- 
rine verse,  adapting  it  in  a  hurry  for  a 
major  address,  and  quite  forgetting  that 
the  Challenger  crew  had,  thanks  to 
those  O-rings,  entirely  failed  to  slip  the 
surly  bonds  of  earth.  But  then  I  realized 
that  this  would  be  a  cheap  "Gotcha." 
The  only  grandeur  that  Reagan's  speech 
possessed  was  furnished  by  this  pur- 
loined finery.  No  property  had  actually 
gone  missing,  so  there  had  been  no 
theft.  A  minor  poet  had  become  useful 
on  a  major  occasion. 

So  I  leave  you  with  the  words  of  that 
famous  dopehead  Thomas  de  Quincey, 
himself  no  mean  plagiarist  and  the  very 
man  who  first  published  accusations  of 
Coleridge's  thievery:  "It  is  undeniable, 
that  thousands  of  feeble  writers  are  con- 
stantly at  work,  who  subsist  by  Plagia- 
rism, more  or  less  covert.  It  is  equally 
undeniable  .  .  .  that  thousands  of  feeble 
critics  subsist  by  detecting  plagiarisms  as 
imitations,  real  or  supposed." 

Just  as  writers  should  beware  of  joining 
the  first  category,  so  readers  should  not  be 
too  eager  to  enlist  in  the  second.  Now,  spot 
the  unattributed  quotation  in  this  column. 
At  least,  I  hope  there's  only  one.  □ 


F.Y.I.    CANDICE    BERGEN 
SPOTTED    I  N    AB ACO 


No    Executive    Producers 

No    Secretaries 

No    Matching    Blazers 

No    Secretaries 

No    Vice    President's 

No    Secretaries 

THE    ISLANDS    OF    THE    BAHAMAS 

It   Just    Keeps    Getting    Better 

Call  your  travel  agent  •  http://www.interknowledge.com/bahamas 


vNITY  FAIR  /MAY  1996 


63 


i 


« 


PRIMARY  COLOR 

From  the  cabin  fever  of  the  Buchanan  plane  to 

Bob  Dole's  stilted  New  Hampshire  wave, 

to  Shelley  Buchanan's  old-style  composure,  it  ha 

been  a  political  season  of  familiar  images. 


■ 


u 


It's  not  much  of  a  party  as  Republican 

front-runner  Bob  Dole  s  Leaders  Ship, 
fueled  by  stale  rhetoric  and  buffeted  by 

challenger  Pat  Buchanan,  attempts  to  fly  high 

'  BY  MATTHEW  TYRNAUER 


On    the    Leader's   Ship: 
Another  landing,  anoth- 
er long  campaign  day. 
It  is  my  first  flight 
on  what  the  senator's  or- 
ganization calls  Bob  Dole's 
Leader's  Ship,  and  as  the 
creaky  old  bird  makes  its 
final  descent,  a  reporter  to 
my  right  gives  me  a  nudge: 
"Did  they  tell  you  about 
the  pilot?"  she  whispers  as 
the  plane  pitches  violently  to  the  left. 
Burly  TV  cameramen  in  the  rear  wail  in 
terror.  "He's  not  very  good  at  landings." 
Reporters  all  around  me  grip  their  arm- 
rests. "Oh,  God,  this  is  the  worst  yet!" 
someone  moans.  Up  in  the  posh  front 
cabin.  Senator  Dole  rolls  his  eyes.  He  is 
a  man's  man  who  shows  no  fear. 

"What  do  you  think  of  this  landing?" 
a  reporter  inquires. 

"Well,"  says  Dole  as  the  plane 
smacks  down,  "we're  all  right  so  far." 

Sweaty-browed  and  queasy,  we  de- 
plane: reporters  down  the  rear  stairs,  the 
senator  and  staff,  in  grander  style,  from 
the  front.  Already  the  press  corps  is  in  a 
grim  mood,  and  it's  only  11  a.m. 

"One  more  landing  like  that  and 
he'll  get  his  license,"  says  Dole  sardon- 
ically before  slipping  into  his  Lincoln 


^iSP 


Town  Car. 
The  newspeople  are  left 
to  shiver  in  the  wind  before  the  bus  ar- 
rives. Then  it's  on  to  the  next  event 
and  another  city— and  another  horrible 
landing.  Nothing  changes.  In  this  cam- 
paign there  is  the  sense  that  everything 
that  happens  has  happened  before. 
Every  word  is  familiar. 

Despite  the  senator's  weeks  of  pri- 
mary sweeps,  the  prevailing  mood  on 
Air  Dole— with  six  months  left  to  go  in 
the  campaign— is  sour. 

Even  in  victory,  there  appears  to  be 
nothing  in  this  stuffy  fuselage  to  believe 
in  beyond  the  steely  competence  of  ma- 
chinery grinding  out  the  votes.  No  pop- 
ulist rage  to  fire  a  story.  No  dream  for 
staffers  to  flesh  out  or  carry  forward. 
No  new  ideas.  Only  the  air  of  inevitabil- 
ity ..  .  and  a  never-ending  succession  of 
bad  ham  sandwiches. 


The  senator's  dream  of  becor 
ing  his  party's  nominee  is  all  M 
real,  but  he  has  managed  to  putti 
into  the  epic-length  pre-general-eleij 
tion  season  with  a  huge  "vitality  gapi 
No  matter  how  much  he  may  liij 
to  sit  at  "that  big  desk"— to  quoJ 
George  Bush— he  can't  summon  tlj 
vision  of  an  idealist  or  revolution 
ary.  Kansas  is  a  dusty  memoil 
Dole's  city  on  the  hill  is  Washir| 
ton,  a  former  swamp  where  ragijj 
dreams,  and  new  ideas  get  min 
in  compromise.   His  campaiij 
has   the   obligatory   feeling 
morning  chores.  Pat  Buchanal 
motivated  by  bile,  and  perhaps  belil| 
now  bobs  along,  getting  in  a  potsr| 
sound  bite  whenever  he  can. 

It's   as   if  the   winning   and   losis| 
camps  had  gotten  confused.  From 
very  beginning  it  seemed  that  Buchan;| 
existed    to    provide    counterpoint, 
show  everything  that  makes  Dole  a  dJ 
November  prospect.   He's  been   fiel 
engaging,  and  committed  enough  to  ( | 
tract  us  from  the  fact  that,  like  Dole, 
is  essentially  a  Cold  War  politician,  si 
died  with  rhetoric  which  now  soui 
tiresome  even  to  the  generation  it  v 
invented  for.  While  America  moves 
the  Internet,  the  G.O.P.  still  speaks 
perfect  families  gathered  around  a  c| 
cifix  and  a  staticky  radio. 

On  the  Leader's  Ship,  in  Do' 
cushy  forward  cabin,  the  huge  fi 
class  seats  are  ash  gray  and  corpora 
looking.  Some  are  arranged  in  grou 
waiting  for  lively  sessions  of  give-a 


64 


Photographs  by  JONATHAN  BECKER 


VANITY  FAIR /MAY 


DOM 


AM 


\ 


NORDSTROM     SAKS   FIFTH   AVflsJME     SELECT  MACY'S/BULLOCK'S      1.800.647.74  74 


take  which  never  seem  to  occur.  On 
the  walls  are  inspiring  photos  of  the 
senator  and  his  wife,  Elizabeth— less 
soul  mate  than  branch  manager— who 
is  currently  campaigning  elsewhere. 
Dole  seems  more  prisoner  here  than 
contender. 

One  quiet  morning  before  takeoff, 
the  majority  leader  sits  in  his  flying 
cloakroom,  talking  on  a  flip  phone, 
facing  the  rear  of  the 
fuselage  in  his  shirtsleeves 
with  his  red  Hermes- 
style  tie  in  a  tight  knot. 
Watching  him  all  alone 
up  there,  even  a  reporter 
can't  help  but  feel  a 
wave  of  sympathy  for 
this  powerful  man. 

At  72,  Bob  Dole  is 
the  oldest  person  ever 
to  run  for  a  first  pres- 
idential term,  and  his 
seniority,  which  Amer- 
icans might  have  once 
seen  as  worthy  of  re- 
spect, has  been  the 
source  of  many  in- 
dignities. At  one 
campaign  breakfast 
event,  a  waiter  took  his  plate  from  the 
table  and  proceeded  to  cut  up  his  food, 
because  he  feared  that  the  senator,  with 
his  arm  paralyzed  from  World  War  II, 
could  not  do  it  himself.  There  are  also 
the  mortifying  instances  when  his  sim- 
ple, two-syllable  name  is  mangled: 
"Ladies  and  gentlemen.  Dob  Bole!"  Or 
worse:  "Ladies  and  gentlemen.  Bob 
Bush!"  He  is  no  one's  favorite,  really. 
And  this  seems  to  show— as  if  through 
all  the  years  of  struggle,  he  knew  it 
would  be  this  way.  He  has  already  been 
labeled  "the  worst  campaigner  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  human  race"  (less  effective 
than  even  Michael  Dukakis)  by  Maureen 
Dowd  in  TJie  New  York  Times.  Only  a 
few  hours  on  the  Leader's  Ship  shows 
her  to  have  been  trafficking  in  under- 
statement. 

The  regulars  in  the  press  cabin  often 
grouse  that  the  candidate  seems  to  do 
everything  in  his  power  to  avoid  min- 
gling with  the  unwashed.  (And,  for  that 
matter,  mingling  with  them:  he  once 
mistook  a  voter  for  a  reporter,  then,  re- 
alizing his  mistake,  apologized,  saying, 
"Oh,  you  look  normal!")  No  matter 
how  hard  he  tries— and  the  harder  he 
tries  the  worse  it  gets— Dole  cannot 
hide  a  distaste  for  the  hustings.  He  just 
can't  believe  anyone  buys  this  old 
show.  He  seems  most  alive  mak- 
ing ironic  jokes  that  a  lot  of  "folks" 


Dole  once  mistook  a 
voter  for  a  reporter,  then, 
realizing  his  mistake, 
apologized,  saying,  "Oh, 
you  look  normal!" 


stan 
even 
a  fe 


ety  fifth-graders  look  like  backdro 
rolled  in  from  some  after-school  broac 
cast.  The  scene  has  a  surreal  cast— esp< 
daily  since  about  150  people 
at  the  gates,  barred  from  the 
which  is  empty  but  for  the  kids 
pols,  and  reporters. 

Dole  makes  only  one  other  publ 
appearance  that  day— before  the  sarr 
reporters  in  a  vast  conference  rooi 
at    the    chic    Houstonian    Hotel.    / 
this    event,    he    is    surrounded,    HI 
a    wax-museum    a 
traction,    on    thn 
sides  by  a  black  \| 
vet    rope.    He   go< 
virtually    the    entii 
day  without  encou, 
tering  a  member 
the  general  public. 


A 


DOLEFUL 

The  candidate  in  Colorado:  Dole's  dream 

of  winning  the  G.O.P.  presidential  nomination 

is  all  but  real,  yet  on  the  campaign  trail  he 

remains  the  victim  of  a  sort  of  "vitality  gap." 


don't  get,  and,  like  your  granddad's  old 
Chevy,  he  takes  a  long  time  to  warm 
up.  As  many  have  noted,  he  tends 
to  hit  his  stride  at  night— after  report- 
ers have  filed.  Cheerful  campaign  sit- 
uations make  him  look  pained.  In 
posed  photos,  his  pinched,  thin  grin 
wickedly  lampoons  his  wife's  huge, 
lipsticked  smiles. 

i HI  here  are  the  people?"  a  reporter 
asks  as  the  Dole  press  bus  pulls 
up  to  the  Governor's  Mansion  in 
Austin,  Texas,  where  the  candidate  will 
collect  the  rather  tepid  endorsement  of 
Governor  George  W.  Bush  Jr.  (Some 
suspect  that  Governor  Bush  is  courting 
Dole  for  the  vice-presidency,  and  that 
"Daddy,"  as  former  president  Bush  is 
referred  to  here,  is  a  co-conspirator.)  A 
camera  riser  has  been  erected  on  the 
mansion's  lawn,  40  feet  from  the  podi- 
um. Fifty  cameramen  stand  ready  to 
record  the  politicians'  remarks.  Twenty 
chairs  are  set  up  for  the  traveling  press 
directly  in  front  of  the  podium,  and, 
off  to  the  right,  three  rows  of  50  fidg- 


day     later:     We 
Palm  Beach.  Til 
Dole  campaign  h 
managed   to   create 
news  vacuum. 

A  national  TV  c« 
respondent  is  breakiv 
down  on  the  bus:  "I  re 
ly,  really,  really  don 
know  what  to  write  todi 
I  have  two  sound  br> 
and  a  wreath  laying  and  what  am  I  j 
ing  to  say?  'Now  Bob  Dole  went  i 
meet  with  rich  people'?"  You  hear  sii 
lar  comments  constantly. 

Some  reporters  privately  compl.il 
that  when  Dole  appeared  to  be  blow* 
the    nomination    they    had    somethJ 
to  write  about.  ("Steve  Forbes  at  lei 
made  it  fun!"  someone  says.)  But  il 
inevitable   that  the  press  is  going  i 
have  to  allow  Dole  his  moment  in 
coming  months— just  to  make  the  gJ 
eral  election  exciting  enough  to  n| 
about.  This  will  be  a  challenge,  gi'i 
events  like  today's:  an  address  at  a  j 
tirement  hotel  before  the  Pundits  | 
Palm  Beach,  a  group  of  senator-wj 
shiping  McLaughlin  Groupies— averj| 
age,  102.  "If  Dole  can't  hit  it  out  of 
park  here,"  the  jokesters  declare, 
can't  do  it  anywhere." 

General  Vernon  Walters,  aged  79,1 
troduces  Dole  and,  referring  to  the  sh 
tor's  now  mythic  war  wound,  reveals  I 
thusiastically  that  he  himself  '\vas  blc[ 
up  [in  World  War  II]  only  a  few  mi 
from  whatever  happened  to  you  \ 
pened."  So  far  so  good. 

When  Dole  takes  the  podium,  he 
gins  by  conveying  the  exciting  n 
that  Barbara  Bush  has  agreed  to  A 
for  him.  "We  got  the  big  Bush!"  he 


66 


VANITY  FAIR /MAY 


I    I 


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ON  HOLD. 


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eligible.  For  the  name  of  the  winner,  send  a  self-addressed,  stamped  envelope  to  the  Conde  Nast  Group,  "Win  the  Promise  of  a  Lifetime" 
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iiinpiiiiin  Diary 

lims,  a  bit  wild-eyed.  "Barbara  Bush 
id  'Yes!'  yesterday." 
The  ripple  of  excitement  dissipates 
lickly. 

Dole  then  introduces  "Dr.  Zach  Zach- 
iah,  who  can  keep  your  cholesterol 
iwn  to  50!"  You  may  ask  what  a  presi- 
mtial  candidate  is  doing  introducing  a 
olesterol  expert,  but  let  it  pass.  By  No- 
mber,  these  candidates  may  be  chatting 
up  on  the  Home  Shopping  Network. 
Now  it  is  time  for  the  hobgoblin  of 
e  Dole  campaign— the  Stump  Speech, 
ole  looks  stricken. 

Here,  as  extracted  from  my  detailed 
)tes,  is  a  brief  catalogue  of  Dole's  stump 
ernes:  Clinton  bad;  Bob  Dole  =  lead- 
ship;  free  trade,  good  thing!;  W.W.  Il- 
iad a  little  problem  in  Italy";  Bob  Dole 
sabled,  no  big  deal;  "Got  around  to 
buttonhook  last  year.  Before,  I  wouldn't 
e  a  buttonhook  .  .  .  but  a  buttonhook 
ves  you  about  10  minutes 
ery  morning.  So  if  you 
iven't  tried  one,  you 
lght  to  get  one.  So.  If 
>u  need  it,  of  course, 
ren  if  you  don't  need  it, 
will  save  you  a  few  min- 
es. So  that's  what  Bob 
ole  is  all  about";  "Point  of 
1  this  ...  I  care."  The  kick- 
I  "Asked  a  lot  of  times  by 
e  press  about  this  vision 
ing,  as  George  Bush  would 
it  it";  need  an  adult;  nothing 
)mplicated  about  it;  actually, 
)il  it  down,  it's  about  you! 

Some  keep  score  of  how 
any  times  per  appearance 
ole  refers  to  "Bob  Dole"— as  if 

were  campaigning  for  a  more 
loyant-sounding  candidate,  due 

arrive  later.  At  this  event  he 
>mes  in  at  a  relatively  low  five. 

As  reporters  mingle  after  the 

eech,  someone  notes,  "At  least 

didn't  say  'whatever' "  when 

ting  his  ideas  for  the  future.  (Alas— he 
d.  "Whatever"  is,  for  the  time  being, 
e  actual  message  of  the  Dole  campaign.) 

In  the  "Pitchfork  Express":  Miles 
away,  in  another  southern  state,  Pat 
Buchanan  ("Still  loud  and  un- 
wed," says  The  New  York  Times) 
ivels  with  a  skeleton  crew  and  his 
ife,  Shelley.  Unlike  Dole,  he  thrives 
i  making  an  audience  cheer.  "You  go 
a  Dole  rally  and  think  you're  step- 
ng  into  a  funeral  parlor!"  Buchanan 
ice  crowed  to  an  appreciative  mob. 
Buchanan,  who  creates  an  atmos- 
»ere  more  like  a  town  lynching,  does 

pFTY  FAIR /MAY  1996 


not  bore.  Like  Clinton,  he  bridges  the 
distance  between  lectern  and  audience 
(or,  more  precisely,  TV  cameras).  Dole, 
who  has  predicated  his  run  on  the 
virtues  of  staid  and  steady  leadership, 
is  heavily  staffed  and  endlessly  prompt- 
ed, "advanced"  by  a  clipboard-clutch- 
ing, walkie-talkie-equipped  staff.  (Be- 
fore the  Secret  Service  began  pro- 
tecting Dole,  his  campaign— concerned 
above  all  with  the  appearance  of  pro- 

Mrs.  Buchanan  appears  to 
be  tired.  A  few  drops 
of  rain  have  beaded  on  her 
big  American-flag  pin. 


cats.  But  it's  usually  a  quick-hit,  fast-fade 
approach.  We  forget  our  brief  alliances 
with  Strom  Thurmond  (1948),  George 
Wallace  (1968,  1972),  Gary  Hart  (but  only 
in  1988),  Jesse  Jackson  (1984,  1988),  Jerry 
Brown  (1992  especially),  and  Ross  Perot 
(1992  and  ...?).  These  affairs  never  last. 
I  catch  up  with  the  Buchanan  en- 
tourage—what the  candidate  has  been 
calling  the  "Pitchfork  Express"  in  honor 
of  the  people  he  refers  to  as  his  "peasant" 
followers— at  a  meeting  of  the  Christian 
Coalition  in  Columbia,  South  Carolina. 

In  a  stuffy  ballroom  in  the  bowels 
of  a  slightly  shabby  Embassy  Suites  ho- 
tel, Buchanan  is  onstage,  tossing  out  red- 
meat  lines  to  a  glassy-eyed,  embryo- 
obsessed  crowd— an  audience  it's  getting 
tougher  to  scare  up.  (Even  in  South 
Carolina,  54  percent  of  the  voters  are 
pro-choice.)  While  the  candi- 
date speaks,  word  circulates 
that  he  will  visit  the  Citadel 
military  college  in  Charleston 
tomorrow  to  make  a  daring 
post-Shannon  Faulkner  stand 
for  single-sex  military  schools. 
I  sign  up  for  the  trip  with 
a  friendly  Buchanan  aide, 
whom  the  press,  for  some 
reason,  calls  "Hollywood." 


T 


DIVINE  RIGHT 
Pat  Buchanan  introduces  his  wife, 
Shelley,  as  "the  woman  I'm  going  to  nominate 
to  replace  Hillary  Rodham  Clinton!" 


fessionalism— minted  its  own,  ersatz, 
but  official-looking  Secret  Service  ID 
lapel  pins.) 

Buchanan,  at  one  time  no  stranger  to 
the  interests  of  big  business,  now  plays 
free-range  populist.  "We're  going  to  go 
up  to  that  big  Republican  country  club 
and  demand  admission.  We're  going  to 
use  the  swimming  pool  and  everything 
else,"  he  recently  said. 

Americans  love  a  loony  dark  horse- 
especially  the  age-old  scenario  where  the 
dark  horse  pits  himself  against  the  fat 


he  next  day  at  eight 
a.m.    the    "Pitchfork" 
motorcade     rolls     to- 
ward   the    Citadel    with 
two  press  buses  trailing. 

Most  of  the  logistics  of 
the  Buchanan  campaign 
are  left  to  the  Secret  Ser- 
vice; the  Buchanan  or- 
ganization hasn't  the 
money  to  hire  a  full 
complement  of  aides. 
The  agent  baby-sitting 
us  on  the  press  bus  today  is  very  consid- 
erate of  the  reporters,  and  refers  to  our 
bus  ride  as  "The  Magical  Mystery  Tour." 
The  reporters  like  Buchanan  person- 
ally; among  themselves  they  refer  to 
him  as  "Pat."  Normally  the  press  would 
stake  more  distance  and  call  a  candi- 
date by  his  last  name. 

As  we  drive  into  the  South  Carolina 
low  country  along  Interstate  26,  there  is 
a  lot  of  napping  and  a  bit  of  gossiping. 
A  few  people  talk  about  Steve  Forbes. 
At  issue  is  the  peculiar  thing  he  does 
with  his  tongue  when  he  laughs:  it  curls 
upward  and  touches  the  roof  of  his 
mouth.  Someone  proposes  that  this  is  a 
result  of  his  blue-blooded  upbringing: 
he  was  taught  that  it  is  impolite  to  ex- 
pose one's  uvula  to  strangers.  Another 

69 


David  McCullough,  left, 

and  Stephen  Ambrose 

in  the  General  Court  Room 

of  the  Capitol  at 

Colonial  Williamsburg, 

February  16,  1996. 


j 

! 

A  QUES 

-  . 

historians  "argue,  than  whether  or  not 
a  candidateAeeps  his  pants  on 


n  the  words  of  one  president  of  the  United  States,  "I've 
been  here  three  years  and  three  days,  and  I  can  tell  you 
without  hesitation:  being  president  of  this  country  is  en- 
tirely about  character."  The  president  was  Andrew 
Shepherd.  The  words  were  spoken  by  Michael  Douglas, 
_  the  actor  who  portrayed  him  in  the  recent  movie  Tlie 
American  President.  Shepherd  was  talking  about  the  charac- 
ter it  takes  to  make  tough  decisions  such  as  sending  bombers 
off  on  dangerous  missions  to  kill  people.  But  out  here  in  the 
real,  non-movie  world,  the  so-called  character  issue  has  be- 
come a  code  phrase  for  sleeping  around. 

Going  into  what  promises  to  be  a  brutal  1996  presidential 
campaign,  several  prominent  presidential  historians  and  ob- 
servers of  modern  presidents  gathered  in  Williamsburg,  Vir- 
ginia, for  a  PBS  special,  Character  Above  All,  which  will  air 


May  29,  to  make  the  point  that  there  is  much  more  to  cl.j 
acter-presidential  character-than  whether  or  not  a  cJj 
date  keeps  his  pants  on.  Presidential  scholars  Stephen  A 
brose  and  David  McCullough  are  among  those  who  ma^ 
Nixon-Truman  point.  Both  Richard  Nixon  and  Harry  ' 
man  were  known  to  be  absolutely  faithful  to  their  wives, 
that  was  it  for  character  similarities  between  the  two.  Tj 
official  actions  and  resulting  places  in  history  were  drivei 
other,  differing  parts  of  their  personalities.  Ambrose  and 
Cullough  each  have  a  list  of  characteristics  that  make 
successful  presidents,  ranging  from  courage,  self -confide  j 
honesty,  and  the  ability  to  delegate  and  admit  mistakes 
sense  of  humor.  But  they  agree  with  Mark  Twain  that  "t< 
rive  at  a  just  estimate  of  a  renowned  man's  character 
must  judge  it  by  the  standards  of  his  time  .  .  .  "  □ 


72 


Photograph  by  EVELYN  HOFER 


VANITY  FAIR /MA 


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Holland  &Holland 

50  East  57th  Street,  New  York,  N.Y.  10022 


1  IOH   AND    ,'V     1  IOI    I   AIJIJ 


1  -aOO-siNcr  -1  835. 


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H    A    DOUBLE-BARRELLED    NAME 


Far  left:  Gene  Pr  [ 
~t  the  1994  Co  I 
Fashion  Desi; 
srica  Awards 
e  pinnacle 
ping,  the  ne> 
i  Madison  ki 
.  is  the 


BRINGING  DOWN  BARNEYS 

Flamboyant  retailing  heir  Gene  Pressman's  plan 

to  create  an  achingly  chic  empire  that  would  stretch  from  Madison 

Avenue  to  Wilshire  Boulevard  has  wreaked 

havoc  on  the  family  business — and  on  the  family  as  well 

BY  JENNET  CONANT 


t  took  just  one  look.  If  anyone 
doubted  that  Barneys,  New  York's 
chic  shopping  emporium,  was  in 
trouble,  the  worst  appeared  to  be 
true  when  Gene  Pressman  walked 
into  Judge  James  Garrity's  bank- 
ruptcy  court  on  a  cold  January  after- 
noon. He  was  wearing  a  dark -blue  suit, 
his  hair  was  short,  and  he  looked  sur- 
prisingly pale. 

It  was  the  suit  that  gave  him  away. 
Fashion  designers,  merchants,  and  man- 
ufacturers   the  cognoscenti  from  New 


74 


York  and  Paris  to  Milan— went  numb, 
though  not  mute.  Gene  Pressman,  the 
flamboyant  retailing  heir  with  the  rock 
V  roll  hair  and  cocky  manner;  Gene 
Pressman,  whose  daily  uniform  was  a 
houndstooth  Hermes  jacket,  jeans,  white 
button-down  shirt  (monogrammed  on 
the  inside  collar),  white  socks,  and  pen- 
ny loafers.  This  was  a  man  too  cool  for 
anything  as  pedestrian  as  pinstripes. 

No  single  image  could  have  tele- 
graphed more  about  the  desperate  state  of 
Barneys'  finances:  at  the  time  of  the  actu- 


al Chapter  11  filing,  the  company's  casi 
totaled  less  than  $1  million,  a  perilous! 
low  amount  for  a  national  operation  wit 
2,000  employees.  But  the  chatter  ove 
Gene's  banker's  suit  seemed  sadly  ironii 
His  father,  Fred,  had  spent  most  of  h 
days  selling  "sleeves."  As  had  his  grant 
father,  the  original  Barney,  who  in  192 
pawned  his  wife's  engagement  ring  f( 
$500  to  open  a  tiny  discount  men's  sho 
on  Manhattan's  lower  West  Side.  Sui 
were  where  it  all  began  for  the  Pressman 
Now  no  one  is  sure  where  it  will  eni 

VANITY  FAIR  /MAY  19 


I 


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The  Relentless  Pursuit  Of  Perfection, 


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Edition,  your  Coach  luggage  will  be  shipped  to  you  within  6-8  weeks.  "Coach  leather  sealing  surface.  "Saving!  baud  on  MSRP  of  individual  options.  Actual  dealer  price  and 
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Gene  Pressman,  45,  shares 
the  title  of  Barneys  C.E.O. 
with   his   stodgy  brother. 
Bob,    41,    who    oversees    the 
company's  finances.  Yet  few 
would  dispute  the  matter  of 
who  has  guided  the  privately 
held  empire  in  recent  years.  It 
was  Gene  who  removed  the 
apostrophe   from   the   store's 
logo  and  transformed  Barneys 
on  out-of-the-way  17th  Street 
into  a  destination,  a  high-style 
store  which  promises— as  Bloomingdale's 
and  Tiffany's  once  did— all  the  glamour 
and    sophistication    of  the    Manhattan 
dream.  It  was  Gene  who  masterminded 
the  creation  and  construction  of  Bar- 
neys' impeccably  turned-out  new  branch- 
es (on  Madison  Avenue,  in  Chicago,  and 
in  Beverly  Hills),  where  details  such  as 
lacquered  walls,  gold-leaf  ceilings,  and 
floors  of  Italian -marble  mosaic  helped 
boost  total  costs  to  nearly  half  a  billion 
dollars.  It  was  all  Gene.  Some  would 
say.  The  success  and  the  excess. 

And  now  Barneys  hangs  in  the  bal- 
ance—or, more  specifically,  control  of 
the  three  new  stores,  the  old  flagship 
place  on  17th  Street,  and  the  16  branch- 
es across  the  country.  At  first,  it  all 
seemed  like  one  of  those  near-biblical 
reversals  of  fortune,  in  which  another 
flashy  upstart  of  the  1980s  is  humbled. 
Yel  as  the  Barneys  saga  unfolds,  more 
complex  dimensions  are  revealed.  The 
brothers  Pressman,  it  seems,  arc  pitted 
against  each  other  in  a  devastating  fami- 
ly drama  made  more  intriguing  by  the 
clan's  long-standing  genius  for  keeping 
ip  appearances.  For  years  the  Press- 
mans  have  been  burdened  by  rivalries  so 
! tense  that  there  are  those  who  see  the 
>thers'  mutual  loathing  as  the  bonfire 
ning  beneath  the  company's  current 
icial  predicament.  A  family  friend 
co      les  the  story  of  Bob's  wife,  Holly, 


DIVIDED  KINGDOMS 
From  far  left:  Fred  Pressman, 
Prince  Andrew,  Phyllis 
Pressman,  the  Duchess  of  York, 
Gene  Pressman,  and  Simon 

Doonan  at  Barneys'  reception 

for  the  royal  couple, 

June  1990.  Below:  Bonnie  and 

Gene,  Phyllis,  Nancy 

Pressman  Dressier,  Fred,  Liz 
Pressman  Neubardt,  Bob 
and  Holly  in  1993. 


calling  her  in-laws  "the  most  dysfunc- 
tional family  I've  ever  seen"  after  an  ar- 
gument several  years  ago  that  left  Gene 
and  Bob  barely  speaking. 
And  that's  only  Act  One. 

Barneys'  bankruptcy  filing  has  cleared 
the  runway  for  the  even  messier  bat- 
tle between  the  Pressmans  and  Ise- 
tan,  the  Japanese  retailing  giant  which 
has  been  their  partner  for  seven  years. 
Between  1989  and  1995,  Isetan  handed 
over  $616  million  to  Barneys,  quietly 
footing  almost  the  entire  bill  for  the  ex- 
pansion of  the  business  into  a  chain  of 
some  of  the  most  sumptuous  stores  on 
the  face  of  the  earth.  But  after  allowing 
the  Pressmans  to  publicly  represent  the 


partnership  in  a  number  of  self-serving 
ways,  after  seeing  spending  accelerate 
endlessly,  after  being  given  what  it  clai: 
was  misleading  financial  information! 
Isetan  rebelled.  "We  believed  our  part- 
ners," said  the  company's  vice  president, 
Michio  Johmori.  "Thinking  back  on  it  i 
now,  we  did  make  a  mistake." 

After  filing  for  Chapter  11,  the  Press-  j 
mans  fired  the  first  shot  by  suing  Isetan,  i 
contending    that    the    company's    new ' 
management  had  reneged  on  a  commit- 
ment to  convert  its  "investment"  intc  j 
equity  in  Barneys.  (Isetan  says  that  Bob  j 
Pressman    once    proclaimed  j 
that  the  Japanese  would  get* 
equity  "over  my  dead  body.!! 
The    Pressmans    insist    thai 
sales  are  healthy,  and  they  feel 
that  Isetan,  previously  inter } 
ested  in  long-term  profits,  hail, 
pulled  the  rug  out  just  as  thai 
new  stores  have  gotten  going 
The  Pressmans  say  that  thi 
lawsuit  is  simply  a  way  to  r| 
trieve  $50  million  previous! 
paid  to  Isetan.  In  fact,  Bai, 
neys'  version  is  so  at  ode 
with    Isetan's   that   the   tw 
sides  are  not  even  in  agre- 
ment  over  the  basic  points  of  their  ir 
usual  contract,  which  now  appears  l 
have  been  fundamentally  vague.  Th( 
do  not  even  concur  as  to  the  ownersh  I 
of  the  valuable  Madison  Avenue,  Bevc 
ly  Hills,  and  Chicago  properties. 

Outraged  by  what  it  views  as  t! 
Pressmans'  legal  maneuvering,  arrogant 
and  lack  of  remorse,  Isetan  is  out  f 
blood.  They  do  not  see  how  they  cj 
continue  working  side  by  side  with  t 
brothers.  In  a  January  legal  action,  Iset: 
demanded  that  the  Pressmans  pay  ba> 
$167  million  in  loans  that  the  brothil 
personally  guaranteed— based  on  n 
worth  statements  that  estimated  tb.f 
wealth  at  $50  million  each.  But  a  soui 
close  to  the  Pressmans  says  that  the  p 
sonal  guarantees  are  worthless  becatjf 
all  of  the  brothers'  assets— from  thl 
company  stock  to  their  fine  homes 
tied  up  in  family  trusts  administered | 
their  father.  A  source  close  to  Isetan  s 
gests  that  the  company  is  angry  enoi< 
to  try  to  place  a  lien  on  the  family  tru 
a  move  that  would  prevent  either  brot 
from  being  able  to  draw  a  dollar. 

And  closely  eyeing  Barneys'  dol' 
are  dozens  of  irate  designers  and 
dors  who  were  left  holding  the  bag 
merchandise  shipped  last  spring.  1 
ping  this  list  is  Hugo  Boss,  whicl 
owed  $2.4  million,  followed  by  Do 
Karan,  which  is  owed  $2.1  million,  1* 


/ 


76 


VANITY  FAIR /MAY 


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BOUTIQUE 

NEW   YORK      LOS    ANGELES      HAWAII 


Fashion 


zotto,  which  is  owed  $1.1  million,  and 
Hickey-Freeman,  which  is  out  $1  mil- 
lion. In  addition.  Barneys  is  more  than 
$300  million  in  debt  to  banks  and  insur- 
ance companies,  costing  the  company 
about  $27  million  in  interest  annually. 
Topping  that  list  is  Chemical  Bank, 
owed  in  excess  of  $71  million. 

In  an  industry  that  feeds  on  rumor,  the 
Pressmans  have  been  innuendoed  to 
death  since  the  opening  of  the  Madi- 
son Avenue  store  in  1993.  The  brothers, 
word  had  it,  couldn't  pay  their  bills. 
Designer  Todd  Oldham  stopped  selling 
to  the  store  years  ago,  he  says,  because 
of  its  "credit  problems."  Most  design- 
ers, however,  continued  to  do  business 
with  Barneys  for  the  simple  reason  that 
they  felt  they  couldn't  afford  not  to. 

The  Medicis  of  men's  wear  for  50 
years,  the  Pressmans  are  renowned 
for  bullying  suppliers.  When  Barneys 
was  trying  to  force  top  labels  into 
selling  to  their  new  store  over  the 
objections  of  the  uptown  competi- 
tion, they  became  embroiled  in  nasty 
feuds  with  Armani  (they  won)  and 
Ralph  Lauren  (they  lost).  Barneys 
has  also,  on  occasion,  blackballed 
suppliers  who  talk  to  the  press.  After 
men's-wear  designer  John  Bartlett 
complained  that  Barneys  had  fallen  be- 
hind in  payments,  his  business  suffered. 
Even  now,  few  designers  will  speak  on 
the  record  for  fear  of  antagonizing  the 
Pressmans.  The  brothers'  heavy-handed 
tactics,  however,  account  for  the  force 
with  which  they  are  now  being  attacked 
in  some  quarters. 

In  showrooms  and  over  lunch  at  the 
Royalton,  the  overwhelming  conclusion 
of  Gene  Pressman's  fashion  peers  is 
that  his  ego  has  been  his  undoing.  "It's 
always  been  all  about  his  arrogance," 
snaps  a  well-known  designer  who  is 
owed  money  by  Barneys.  "They  had  a 
'Let  them  eat  cake'  attitude,"  says  a 
fashion  director  who  believes  that  Bob 
Pressman  is  every  bit  as  egotistical 
as  Gene. 

"It  just  goes  to  prove  the  old  adage," 
observes  a  leading  Seventh  Avenue  fig- 
ure, "that  the  third  generation  always 
runs  the  empire  into  the  ground." 

A  charter  member  of  the  "lucky-sperm 
club,"  as  one  of  his  golfing  buddies 
puts  it,  Gene  Pressman  was  born 
rich,  good-looking,  and  charming— espe- 
cially to  women.  Of  Phyllis  and  Fred 
Pressman's  four  children,  Gene— the  first 
boy— is  his  doting  parents'  favorite. 
Though  he  grew  up  in  the  genteel  New 


York  suburb  of  Harrison,  he  comes 
across  like  a  scrappy  street  kid.  Daunt- 
ingly  fit,  he  has  a  lean,  muscular  build 
from  years  of  boxing.  When  he  is  an- 
gry, his  voice  takes  on  a  tough  edge 
and  can  sometimes  seem  slightly  dan- 
gerous, with  his  revved-up  energy 
threatening  to  explode. 

A  handful  from  the  start.  Gene 
bounced  in  and  out  of  boarding  schools 
before  graduating  from  the  Hackley 
School,  in  suburban  Tarrytown.  As  a 
teenager,  he  announced  he  wanted  to  be 
a  "rock  star"  and  enrolled  under  duress 
at  Syracuse  University,  where  his  fellow 
students  included  Ian  Schrager  and  Steve 
Rubell,  who  would  found  Studio  54,  and 
publicist-to-be  Peggy  Siegal.  A  classmate 


Lacquered  walls  and  floors 
of  Italian-marble  mosaic  helped 
boost  total  costs  of  the 
three  showcase  Barneys  stores. 


recalls  Gene  as.  not  lacking  in  confidence: 
"He  used  to  kid  around  [about  the  store] 
and  say  he  was  looking  forward  to  the 
day  his  grandfather  was  no  longer 
around,  so  he  could  call  it  Geno's." 

After  graduating  with  a  degree  in 
radio  and  television,  Gene  headed  for 
L.A.  and  the  movies.  He  lasted  two 
months  as  a  gofer  on  the  movie  Black 
Gunn.  "What  can  I  tell  you?"  he  said 
later.  "I'm  an  impatient  guy." 

So  he  returned  to  the  family  store. 
In  1976,  exhibiting  a  keen  eye  for  mod- 
els and  miniskirts,  young  Gene  broke 
the  Barneys  tradition  of  selling  only 
men's  clothes  by  opening  a  small  wom- 
en's boutique.  Before  long,  he  had 
filled  the  top  two  floors  of  the  store 
with  the  sexy  little  dresses  of  Armani, 
Chloe,  and  Missoni.  He  even  started 
his  own  youthful  fashion  line,  Basco. 
Gene  loved  attending  the  designer 
shows  in  Europe,  showing  up  at  formal 
parties  in  tight  jeans,  T-shirt,  and  tan. 
He  created  a  stir  with  his  club-hopping 
lifestyle  and  girl-in -every-showroom  ex- 
ploits, and  he  was  known  for  his  ap- 
petites—for sex  and  cocaine.  "In  my 
younger  days,  before  I  was  married," 
he  admits,  "I  lived  a  more  free-spirited 


life."  Some  legends  never  die:  Almostl 
everyone  interviewed  for  this  piece  hadl 
an  unprintable  Gene  Pressman  story.] 
Many  involved  beautiful  blondes,  un-j 
usual  places,  and  outrageous  public  dis-T 
plays  of  affection.  As  Vogue  editor! 
Anna  Wintour  once  noted,  "Gene  is 
one  of  the  few  straight  guys  in  the  busi- 
ness, and  he  enjoys  it." 

By  the  late  70s,  Gene  was  pushing  his] 
father  to  let  him  add  a  full  women's! 
store  to  Barneys.  But  Fred  Pressman,) 
who  had  transformed  his  father's  tinyj 
place  into  a  shopping  mecca  featuring! 
Giorgio  Armani  and  the  most  exclusive} 
international  men's-wear  brands,  includ-1 
ing  Brioni  and  Piattelli,  understood  that 
women's  wear  was  risky.  Yet  he  alsoi 
understood  that  his  son  deserved-i 
the  freedom  his  own  father  had 
given  him.  At  Phyllis's  urging,!) 
Fred  reluctantly  relented. 

Gene    threw    himself   intoH 
every  detail,  hiring  a  phalanxj 
of    famous     architects     andj 
designers:    Peter    Marino    in . 
New  York,  Andree  PutmanJ 
and  Jean  Paul  Beaujard  froroj 
France,    and    Setsu    Kitaokan 
from   Japan.    Father  and  sorq 
walked  the  streets  of  Europe  with  de-t 
sign  teams,  pointing  out  details,  shop*! 
ping  at  antiques  markets  for  Art  Deed 
and  Wiener  Werkstatte  pieces— and  arj 
guing.  Plans  would  be  drawn  and  re' 
drawn;      sections     would      be     built 
scratched,  and  rebuilt.  "They  had  ven 
high  standards  .  .  .  and  kept  changing 
their  mind  to  make  things  more  perfect,' I 
recalls  Dick  Blinder,  of  the  design  firnij 
Beyer  Blinder  Belle,  which  supervised 
the  construction  of  the  store,  designed  h 
incorporate  six  elegant  turn-of-the-centu 
ry  town  houses.  "Cost  was  no  objec. 
which  was  certainly  very  different  thai 
the   way  a   public   corporation   woulj 
have  treated  it." 

When  the  Barneys  Women's  Store  f-l 
nally  opened,  two  years  late  and  havinj 
cost  more  than  $25  million,  it  was  spa 
cious  and  elegant,  with  a  magnificeij 
spiral  staircase  that  winds  up  six  floo 
and  looks  like  something  out  of  a  Fre 
Astaire  movie.  Between  the  Prada  ban 
and  Andree  Putman's  checkerboard  cc 
metics  counter  (which  stocked  real  tc 
toiseshell    combs),    shopaholics    fro  I 
Cher   to   Madonna   could   be   spottu 
wielding  charge  cards.  Sundays  becan 
a    fashion    sideshow,    with    pencil-th 
models  in  leather  trekking  through  tl| 
store  with  assorted  downtown  trendsi 
ters.  Standing  on  the  corner,  Bill  Ci  | 


78 


VANITY  FAIR /MAY  1 


Clear  head.  Lift  left 


urv  wjlX 


laittiMiilii 


JHHI 


Note:  If  sudden 

desire  to  sprint  or  sk/p 

occurs,  go  with  it. 


jCol  only  did  tjddi'e  Bauer  refuse  to  work  weekends,  he  refused  to  work  ti 
length  of  fishing  season.  A  fact  we  hope  inspires  more  overworked 
men  and  women  to  take  the  day  off,  no  matter  what  season 
it  may  be.  All  those  who  stand  in  agreement  are  welcome  to 
call  for  the  nearest  store  or  clothing  catalog.  800-789- 1387. 


JIS^c£ui/S&a**SA. 


Fashion 


ningham,  the  veteran  New  York  Times 
photographer,  captured  it  all. 

Everybody  got  into  the  groove.  "'Bar- 
neys is  like  a  decadent  reward,"  says 
New  York  actress  Sarah  Jessica  Parker. 
"If  you're  a  decent  person  and  you  work 
hard,  you  get  to  go  to  Barneys."  Every- 
thing at  Barneys  was  younger  and  cool- 
er. The  clerks  oozed  more  attitude  than 
the  customers.  It  worked.  Barneys  car- 
ried Miuccia  Prada's  clothes  when  the 
fashion    press    still    laughingly    termed 
them  "Simplicity  Patterns."  Gene  show- 
cased then  unknowns  such  as  Azzedine 
Alai'a,  Rei  Kawakubo  of  Comme 
des  Garcons,  and  Helmut  Lang.  Jil 
Sander,  another  Barneys  import,  re- 
calls her  first  meeting  with  Gene  as 
"spontaneous  love." 

"Gene  had  the  courage  to  take 
risks."  says  Alai'a,  who  regards  the 
Pressmans  as  a  second  family.  "He  in- 
troduced a  lot  of  new  designers— not 
just  me  but  also  Rei  and  so  many  oth- 
ers—to America.  From  the  beginning, 
he  was  very  supportive." 

"Gene  is  so  confident."  explains  Chet 
Hazzard,  president  of  Vera  Wang.  "He 
has  a  wonderful  way  of  bringing  design- 
ers he  believes  in  into  his  world  and  Bar- 
neys." But  if  "his"  designers  wanted  to 
expand  beyond  Barneys— say  into  Berg- 
dorf  s— Gene  could  go  from  charming  to 
profane  in  the  blink  of  an  eye.  "He  can 
be  unpleasant,"  acknowledges  Hazzard. 
"And  it  isn't  always  fun  to  be  on  the  re- 
ceiving end." 

"Sometimes  they  go  too  far,"  says 
Giorgio  Armani,  no  stranger  to  battles 
with  the  Pressmans.  "But  whatever  else 
you  can  say  about  Barneys,  you  must 
admit  that  it  is  one  of  the  stores  every- 
one watches." 

In  the  80s,  image  was  all.  Nobody  did 
it  better  than  Barneys.  Smart  ads  were 
a  tradition  pioneered  by  Barney  Press- 
man, whose  radio  slogans  included 
"Calling  all  men  to  Barney's."  Gene  car- 
ried the  torch,  assembling  a  dazzling  cre- 
ative team  that  featured  the  best  names 
in  the  business— Neil  Kraft,  vice  presi- 
dent of  advertising;  Ronnie  Cooke  New- 
house,  a  creative  director;  art  director 
Fabien  Baron;  publicity  director  Mallo- 
ry  Andrews;  copywriter  Glenn  O'Brien; 
photographers  such  as  Annie  Leibovitz 
and  Steven  Meisel;  merchants  Anne  Ball 
and  Connie  Darrow.  Together  they  or- 
chestrated a  retail  identity  of  unparalleled 
eccentric  urbanity.  One  memorable  televi- 
sion ad  showed  a  model  sauntering  down 
a  Parisian  boulevard  to  throatily  utter, 
"Baar-nees."  It  was  sophisticated,  Euro- 

80 


GPNY 

Below:  Gene  Pressman 

with  Donna  Karan, 

whose  company  is  owed 

$2.1  million  by 

Barneys,  at  1993s 

splashy  September 

opening  of  the  uptown 

store.  Right:  nothing 

comes  between  Gene 

and  Calvin  Klein. 


pean,  enticing.  A  later  cam- 
paign features  figures  rendered  by  artist 
Jean -Philippe  Delhomme,  accompanied 
by  inscrutable  comments  such  as  "Har- 
old liked  carpet  surfing."  The  ads  suc- 
ceeded in  creating  the  sense  that  Barneys 
was  the  cutting  edge. 

Adding  to  the  mystique  were  provoc- 
ative windows  by  Simon  Doonan,  a  Brit 
with  a  tongue  as  sharp  as  his  taste.  His 
mischievous  holiday  displays  (a  Magic 
Johnson  window  complete  with  con- 
dom-festooned Christmas  tree)  were 
newsmaking  and  laced  with  in-jokes. 
Barneys,  according  to  Doonan,  attracted 
him  because  it  was  much  more  tolerant 
of  his  irreverent  attitude  than  traditional 
stores  would  have  been.  "No  one  ever 
said  to  me,  'How  dare  you  put  condoms 
on  a  Christmas  tree!'"  he  says. 

"We  wanted  to  make  a  lot  of  noise." 
recalls  Ronnie  Newhouse  (now  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Newhouse  family,  which  owns 
Conde  Nast.  publisher  of  Vanity  Fair). 
"Fred  and  Gene  had  that  kind  of  vision. 
It  was  like  a  combination  of  creative 
meeting  and  a  men's  locker  room. 
Gene's  a  very  male,  high-testosterone 
character,  and  Barneys  ads  had  a  more 
macho  sensibility  than  was  typical  of  the 
fashion  industry." 

By  1989,  Barneys  was  hot,  grossing 
S100  million  annually,  according  to  its 


own  figures.  "There  was  very  much  a 
feeling  in  the  80s  that  it  was  a  grand 
time  to  be  there,"  recalls  Glenn  O'Brieru 
"We  had  al!  this  talent,  and  were  doing: 
all  these  amazing  things." 

Wildly  charismatic  and  willful,  Gene) 
made  the  scene  in  Milan  with  Annan; 
and  Romeo  Gigli  and  dodged  paparazz 
while  discoing  in  Paris  with  Azzedine 
Alai'a  and  a  bevy  of  runway  beauties.  Fon 
the  people  he  cultivated,  his  ego  was  comr 
pelling.  "He  is  like  the  little  boy  with  i 
curl  in  the  middle  of  his  forehead— wheu 
he  was  good  he  was  very,  very  good,  and 
when  he  was  bad  he  was  horrid, "  says  <> 
former  vice  president  of  the  company 
"He  could  make  you  feel  like  yon 
walked  on  water,  and  inspired  you.  Bu< 
you  didn't  want  him  as  an  enemy.  b& 
cause  he  could  kill  you  with  a  look.' 

Just  when  retail  seemed  dead,  as  Bor 
wit   Teller    bowed    and    carriage-trad 
stores  failed  across  the  country,  Gen- 
Pressman— the    pony  tailed    insurgent- 
made     the     business     exciting     agair. 
"While  everybody  else  has  been  closin 
stores,  he  has  been  opening  them  and  i 
the  process  revitalizing  whole  commun 
ties,"  says  Donna  Karan,  who  sweai 
that  she  really  doesn't  blame  the  Pres 
mans  for  her  company's  financial  prol 
lems  with  Barneys.  "Most  people  play 
safe  and  worry  about  last  year's  figure 
but  Gene  works  from  the  gut." 

Always  high-profile.  Gene  marrie 
Bonnie  Lysohir,  a  former  Ford  mod 
in   1982.  Their  Westchester  home  is 

VANITY  FAIR /MAY  19  j 


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Burdines  .  Macy's  East  .  Sterns  .  The  Bon  Marche 
Hichs  .  Lazarus  .  Goldsmith  .  Bloomingdales  .  Macy's  West 


SPEEDO 


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Atlanta  1996 


Official  Liceased-Pr©< 
;  Atlanta  Comm 
jic  Games 


AUTHEN] 
FITNES 


A  DIVISION  OF  AUTHENTIC  FTTNE 
SVMt-OL  ASM  NEW  YORKJ 
speedo    registered  trademaj 
license  from  SpeedoT 


:ar-old  Tudor-style  mansion  which, 
likes  to  boast,  once  belonged  to 
er  Bugsy  Siegel.  (It  features  a  pri- 
iock,  with  a  secret  passageway 
the  waterfront  to  the  basement, 
;h  which,  according  to  legend, 
g  whiskey  was  once  moved  from 
waiting  off  Long  Island  Sound.) 
hired  architect  Peter  Marino,  who 
orked  on  the  downtown  store,  to 
le  house  into  a  showplace,  and  he 
illing  it  with  Wiener  Werkstatte 
ire,  a  14,000-bottle  wine  cellar, 
cavernous  garage  for  his  collec- 
f  sports  cars,  including  a  vintage 
ston  Martin  and  a  "52  Mercedes 
Ving. 

friends,  Gene  is  by  turns  gracious 
■ass,  obnoxious  and  endearing.  At 
•  parties,   he's   been   known    to 
ibout  the  price  of  a  $200  Bor- 
,  only  to  discover,  while  reading 
from  a  wine  almanac,  that  the 
shouldn't  have  been  opened  for 
;r  five  years.   He  likes  nothing 
than  to  take  guests  out  on  his 
tte  boat,  but  often  manages  to 
ito  trouble  and  has  to  be  towed 
"Slamming  across  [Long  Island] 
with  Gene  are  some  of  the  most 
:ning  moments  of  my  life,"  says  a 
.  "Gene  is  never  boring,"  con- 
Carl  Portale,  the  publisher  of  Elk 
mrabella  magazines,  who  along 
Vogue  publisher  Ron  Galotti  is 
Gene's  golfing  buddies.  "He  at- 
he  game  the  way  he  attacks  life, 
verything  he's  got." 
ce  work  was  not  always  tackled 
le  same  avidity.  Gene's  habit  was 
z  into  town  in  his  black  Porsche 
ride  into  the  office  around   10, 
on  a  big  Cuban  cigar.  (He  kept 
idor  in  his  trunk.)  Most  mornings 
uld  disappear  into  the  executive 
le  had   installed  down   the   hall 
his  office,  emerging  in  time  to 
is  head  in  at  the  end  of  a  meeting 
going  out  for  lunch.  He  often 
ourt  at  Le  Madri,  the  handsome 
;rn  Italian  restaurant  which  the 
lans  and  restaurateur  Pino  Luon- 
:ned  a  block  from  Barneys  as  a 
f  deluxe    store    cafeteria.    (The 
ians'  two  other  ventures  with  Lu- 
Mad.  61,  in  the  uptown  Barneys, 
oco  Pazzo,  are  among  the  most 
r  power  restaurants  in  the  city.) 
the  late  80s,  however,  Gene  was 
store  less  and  less.  Unlike  Fred 
lan,  who  still  comes  in  on  Sun- 
nd  goes  from  department  to  de- 
:nt  rearranging  displays  and  ob- 
over  small  details,  Gene  was  al- 

MR/MAY  1996 


most  never  on  the  floor.  After  he  took 
up  golf,  he  almost  never  came  in  on 
warm  Fridays.  "I  think  he  thought  he 
could  schmooze  his  buddies  and  the 
store  would  be  taken  care  of,"  says  a 
former  executive. 

hile  Gene  became  the  family  star, 
Bob  Pressman,  socially  awkward 
and  somewhat  brooding,  was  rele- 
gated to  the  darker  region  of  the  cos- 
mos. (The  men's  two  married  sisters, 
Nancy  Pressman  Dressier  and  Liz  Press- 
man Neubardt,  both  have  company  ti- 
tles.) Bob,  who  graduated  from  Boston 
University  and  later  earned  an  M.B.A. 
from  Pace  University,  was  given  a  posi- 
tion equal  to  Gene's  on  the  numbers 
side  of  the  business.  He  was,  however, 
definitely  seen  as  lacking  in  the  trade- 
mark Pressman  flair. 

"His  grandfather  used  to  say  Bobby 
had  a  good  head  for  figures,"  recalls 
Martin  Greenfield,  a  legendary  tailor 
who  dresses  everyone  from  Arnold 
Schwarzenegger  to  President  Clinton 
and  has  known  the  Pressman  family  for 
45  years.  "But  Bobby  doesn't  have  the 
sensitivity  to  the  product,  or  to  people, 
that  you  have  to  have  to  be  good  at 
this  business." 


The  two  brothers  couldn't  be  more 
different.  Where  Gene  is  casual,  Bob 
favors  business  suits,  silk  ties,  French 
cuffs.  Where  Gene  is  fit,  funny,  and  ag- 
gressive, Bob  is  pudgy,  stuffy,  and  con- 
servative. What  they  share  is  arrogance 
and  volatility,  qualities  some  trace  to 
their  strong-willed  mother,  Phyllis  Press- 
man. She  is  known  as  a  terror  at  the 
store,  where  she  rules  family  along  with 
Chelsea  Passage,  the  gift  salon  special- 
izing in  Georg  Jensen  silverware  and 
exclusive  patterns  of  Porthault  linens. 
"She  could  sit  and  abuse  you  for 
hours,"  says  a  former  employee. 

But  Gene  helped  his  wife,  Bonnie,  se- 
cure Phyllis's  goodwill.  Bonnie  Press- 
man, who  now  heads  Barneys'  women's 
division,  has  become  a  favorite  at  the 
store,  where  she  is  widely  regarded  as 
hardworking  and  extraordinarily  kind. 
According  to  Barneys  sources,  Bob's 
wife,  Holly,  is  less  favored  by  the 
store's  sometimes  not  so  sympathetic 
employees.  A  former  Morgan  Stanley 
money  manager,  she  runs  the  boys'  and 
young  men's  department. 

According  to  store  sources,  Bob  and 
Holly  perceive  themselves  as  completely 
in  the  shadow  of  Gene  and  Bonnie. 
Their  resentment  is  obvious  and  painful 


Fbdors 

your 
sense  01 
adventure. 


Fashion 


to  observe.  "It  had  to  be  seen  to  be  be- 
lieved," recalls  a  former  Barneys  execu- 
tive. "This  is  a  family  where  there  is  a 
tremendous  amount  of  jealousy." 

Storeside.  emotions  run  high  with  the 
often  at-odds  family  members  working 
together  five  days  a  week.  Some  employ- 
ees describe  the  situation  as  a  continuing 
melodrama  in  which  family  members 
haggle  incessantly  over  titles,  salaries, 
and  authority.  For  example,  when  new 
headquarters  were  planned,  measure- 
ments were  taken  to  the  last  square  inch 
to  ensure  that  the  two  brothers'  adjoin- 
ing offices  would  be  exactly  the  same 
size.  When  New  York  magazine  planned 
to  feature  Gene  alone  in  a  major  story 
on  the  opening  of  the  Women's  Store, 
Bob  threw  such  a  tantrum  that  at  the 
last  minute  the  magazine  me- 
chanically inserted  him  into  the 
cover  photograph  beside  his 
beaming  brother. 

Emotional  scenes  and  rivalries 
are  par  for  the  course  with  all 
families  and  most  family  business- 
es. But  at  Barneys,  according  to 
one  insider,  the  tensions  between 
the  two  brothers  have  been  end- 
lessly exacerbated  by  their  con- 
flicts over  money.  Gene  began  costly 
improvements  on  the  Women's  Store  al- 
most immediately  after  its  inauguration. 
The  contemporary-clothes  section,  called 
the  CO/OP,  was  closed  just  four  months 
after  its  debut.  When  it  reopened  a  sea- 
son later.  Gene  told  a  reporter  from 
Women's  Wear  Daily  that  he  still  hadn't 
finished  fine-tuning.  Asked  when  the 
store  might  be  completed,  he  estimated 
another  four  or  five  years.  Bob  wearily 
added.  "It's  never  finished." 

This  is  a  family  in  which  no  detail  is 
too  small  to  ignore.  The  brothers  bat- 
tled loudly  and  vocally  over  Gene's  ex- 
penditures and  his  inability  to  stick  to 
budgets,  say  insiders,  and  when  Bob 
confronted  Fred  with  the  bills,  his 
father,  also  an  aesthetic  perfectionist, 
sided  with  Gene.  "We  were  always  on 
the  same  page  regarding  budget  mat- 
ters." says  Gene  of  his  relationship  with 
his  father. 

According  to  a  source  close  to  the 
Pressman  family,  "Fred  has  a  blind 
spot  for  Gene.  Gene  cannot  distinguish 
between  fantasy  and  reality.  This  has 
been  a  problem  since  childhood.  .  .  . 
Fred  supported  almost  anything  he 
wanted,  regardless  of  its  merits,  conse- 
quences, or  benefits." 

"Between  the  brothers  it  was  a  con- 
stant battle,"  recalls  an  architect  who 
worked  for  Barneys.  "Bobby  wanted  to 


prove  that  he  could  do  anything.  No 
matter  how  outrageous  Gene's  plan  was, 
he  could  come  up  with  the  financing.  So 
maybe  he's  claiming  it  was  all  Gene's 
idea,  but  he  was  as  much  to  blame. 
That's  how  it  was  between  them." 

By  the  late  80s,  not  satisfied  with  Bar- 
neys' downtown  image,  Gene  was 
eager  to  take  on  the  big  department 
stores  on  their  own  turf.  He  had  been 
obsessed  with  Bergdorf  Goodman  and 
its  dapper  chairman,  Ira  Neimark.  A 
former  Bergdorf's  executive  remembers 
Gene  pestering  him  for  details  on  how 
Neimark,  then  in  his  late  60s,  conducted 
himself,  what  he  was  like  in  meet- 


From  a  Seventh  Avenue  sage: 
"It  just  goes  to  prove  the  old  adage 
that  the  third  generation  always 
runs  the  empire  into  the  ground." 


ings,  what  he  wore.  "Gene 
would  always  scoff  at  him  and  make 
critical  remarks,  but  he  respected  what 
he  had  accomplished,"  says  the  source, 
adding.  "He  wanted  to  knock  him  off 
his  pedestal." 

Years  earlier,  Fred  had  come  close 
to  buying  the  old  Henri  Bendel  store 
on  57th  Street.  He  had  also  toyed  with 
the  idea  of  opening  Barneys  in  other 
cities.  (He  worried  that  few  places 
could  support  such  an  upscale  store.) 
Fred  shared  Gene's  dream  of  moving 
uptown  and  allowed  himself  to  be  con- 
vinced. But  the  Pressmans'  timing 
couldn't  have  been  worse.  They  chose 
to  embark  on  their  ambitious  expan- 
sion program  in  1987,  on  the  heels  of 
the  stock-market  crash,  when  most  re- 
tailers were  preparing  to  cut  back.  It 
was  the  kind  of  decision  that  only  a 
family-held  company  could  make.  Pub- 
lic companies  are  accountable  to  share- 
holders. The  Pressman  brothers  were 
accountable  to  no  one. 

Back  in  1982,  one  week  before  Gene's 
marriage,  Fred  had  established  an  elabo- 
rate family  trust  encompassing  all  of  the 
family's  holdings.  Fred  got  25  voting 
shares.  Gene  and  Bob  got  25  each,  and 
the  two  daughters  got  12.5  each.  As 
patriarch  and  chairman,  Fred  retained 


voting  control  of  the  company  through 
his  personal  stock  ownership  and  as 
trustee  of  the  children's  trusts.  So  it  was 
with  his  knowledge  and  approval  that 
the  brothers  went  into  action,  opening 
their  first  branch  store,  in  the  World 
Financial  Center,  and  a  few  months  lat- 
er announcing  their  intention  of  opening 
as  many  as  100  Barneys  America  stores 
across  the  country. 

It  was  Bob's  idea  to  bring  in  Gold- 
man, Sachs  &  Co.  to  help  map  out  a 
long-term  strategic  plan  and  locate  poten- 
tial investors.  The  Pressmans  had  already 
made  the  rounds  of  Wall  Street,  where 
they  struck  investors  as  willful  and  self- 
satisfied.  Because  the  Pressmans,  howev- 
er, were  reluctant  to  give  up  any  control, 
they  rejected  traditional  financ 
ing,    such   as    a   public   of* 
fering.  In  November  1988 
Goldman  arranged  a  meet 
ing  with  the  then  head  o 
Isetan,  Kuniyasu  Kosugea 
a  brash,  aggressive  heie 
bent  on  making  his  owi* 
mark.  Gene  and  Kosugij 
immediately  hit  it  off. 
Later,    in    March    1989*1 
representatives    from    Barney 
and  Isetan  met  on  a  golf  course  r 
Hawaii.  While  Gene  and  Kosuge  wei 
out  on  the  town,  Bob  negotiated  into  tl 
early  morning  with  Isetan's  head  of  f 
nance,  hammering  out  an  unprecedente 
international  partnership  which  wouK 
provide  the  Pressmans  with  $12  millioi 
in   expansion   funds   to   build   Barnev 
America  stores  in  malls  across  the  couii 
try.  Isetan  would  hold  a  minority  intere 
in  the  new  American  stores,  a  majorir 
interest  in  all   Barneys  stores  built 
Japan,  and,  quite  important,  rights  to  tl 
Barneys  name  in  Asia. 

But  Gene,  with  his  platinum  tongu' 
continued  to  work  on  Kosuge,  and  b 
fore  the  meeting  was  over,  the  two  cor' 
panies  expanded  the  arrangement  to  i 
elude  a  complicated  real-estate  deal.  If  i 
tan  agreed  to  bankroll  three  showca 
stores,  in  uptown  Manhattan,  Chicag 
and  Beverly  Hills.  As  the  deal  was  orir 
nally  negotiated,  Isetan  would  pay  c 
$236  million  for  the  land  and  the  nt 
buildings  and  receive  a  monthly  re 
based  on  the  property  value  and  sa 
volume  of  each  location.  The  Pressma 
would  get  their  stores  for  free  and  th 
would  retain  total  control.  The  V 
companies  were  so  pleased  with  ea 
other  they  actually  specified  on  paj 
that  the  agreement  could  last  499  yea 
"When  Fred  first  got  back  he  sak 
was  a  marriage  made  in  heaven," 


84 


VANITY  FAIR  /MAY 


sleeping  beauty 

While  you  sleep,  it  works.  Overnight. 
For  younger  looking  skin. 


fclizabe 


tVv 


M 


&eft 


Introducing 

Cer amide  Night 

Intensive  Repair  Cream 

Our  most  advanced  age-fighting  ingredients  to  help  skin 
repair  its  appearance  and  rally  against  daytime  damage. 

Elizabeth  Arden 

Castner  Knott  Co.    Barons   Cayfcrs   J.B.White   The  Jones  Store  Co     Joslins    McAlpin's 


calls  Martin  Greenfield.  His  sons  were 
crowing  that  it  was  far  more,  implying 
that  they  had  taken  the  Japanese  for  all 
they  were  worth.  "Bob  walked  around 
patting  himself  on  the  back,  saying, 
'We  fucked  the  Japanese— we  didn't 
give  them  anything,*"  recalls  a  former 
senior  vice  president  of  the  company. 

But  some  were  ambivalent  about  the 
deal's  long-term  prospects.  "Gene  talked 
his  way  into  this  very  strange  agree- 
ment," says  Tomio  Taki,  one  of  Barneys' 
largest  suppliers,  who  owns  Anne  Klein 
and  co-owns  Donna  Karan.  "It  was 
clear  something  would  have  to  be  done 
between  the  Japanese  investors  and  the 
Pressmans  down  the  road  because  the 
agreement  was  dramatically  one-sided  to 
benefit  the  Pressmans  and  Barneys." 

As  soon  as  the  deal  was  done,  Gene 
Pressman  began  scouting  New  York's 
best  retail  locations  for  Barneys' 
new  uptown  store.  He  eventually  settled 
on  660  Madison  Avenue,  a  property 
once  owned  by  Jean  Paul  Getty.  Peter 
Marino  gutted  the  existing  building 
and  started  from  scratch,  carving  out  a 
vast,  230,000 -square-foot  store  on  the 
first  8  floors,  and  14  floors  of  premium 
office  space  above  that.  More  than 
$20  million  was  spent  blasting  down 
through  15  feet  of  solid  granite  for  a 
new  basement  to  house  a  truck  elevator 
and  a  special  turntable  to  bring  in  mer- 
chandise in  the  heavily  trafficked  area. 
The    Pressmans   insisted   on   sheathing 


the  entire  building  in 
French  limestone,  top 
to  bottom— until  the 
construction  firm  per- 
suaded them  to  stop 
at  the  10th  floor, 
above  which  pre-cast  concrete  is  barely 
noticeable.  Expenses  soared  and  the  in- 
terior work  had  not  even  begun. 

Although  the  agreement  with  Isetan 
specified  the  amount  of  funding  avail- 
able for  the  new  stores,  Gene  and  Fred 
ignored  the  budget  from  the  beginning. 
Plans  were  drawn  and  scratched,  drawn 
and  scratched.  Repeating  a  familiar  pat- 
tern, Gene  would  visit  the  construction 
site  and  make  changes.  Then  Fred 
would  drop  by  and  undo  them.  The 
process  took  on  a  surreal  dimension 
when  all  six  Pressmans  were  brought  in. 

Because  Gene  liked  wood  floors,  40 
kinds  of  trees,  from  beech  to  sycamore, 
were  used.  Because  he  liked  antiques, 
some  of  the  chairs  came  from  Christie's. 
Because  he  enjoyed  aquariums,  he  had 
three  large  ones  custom-built.  (Eventu- 
ally they  would  be  stocked  with  expen- 
sive saltwater  fish.  A  baby  sand  shark 
named  Sinatra  was  removed  after  it  be- 
gan attacking  its  valuable  tankmates.) 
There  were  additional  whims.  Gene 
planned  a  professional  boxing  ring  for 
the  lavish,  never  completed  ninth-floor 
health  club.  Money  was  no  object.  A 
$15,000  light  fixture  was  rejected  at  the 
last  minute  when  Gene  decided  he  hat- 
ed it  and  ordered  it  dispatched  to  the 
warehouse.  The  elegant  main  foyer  re- 
portedly had  to  be  redone  after  the 
original  design  allowed  gale-force 
winds  to  whip  through  the  spare  corri- 
dors. Marino's  bill  swelled  along  with 
the  family's  competing  eccentricities. 

"Fred  and  Gene  were  at  numerous 


meetings  where  Lehrer  McGovern  Bov»| 

[the   construction   company]   pointed  I 

out  the  cost  overruns,  and  where  thai 

design  ignored  the  financial  reali- 

ties  of  the  deal  with  Isetan,"  says ' 

a  source  close  to  the  Pressmansli 

"But  they  could  not  be  prevenai 

ed  from  building  the  store  like 

their  personal  homes." 

The  constant  changes  put  the  j 

company  months  behind  schedj 

ule.  "Ninety-nine  percent  of  ad 

ditional  costs  were  related  to  de 

sign  changes  and  overtime,"  say* 

Michael    Kaplan,   vice   presiden 

of  Lehrer  McGovern  Bovis.  "Wi 

worked  from  the  middle  of  May  fl 

the  morning  the  store  opened  20  hour. 

a  day,  seven  days  a  week.  It  cost  mil 

lions  and  millions  in  overtime."  Mak 

ing  matters  worse,  Metropolitan  Life 

which  had  been  developing  office  spac 

in  the  floors  above  Barneys,  abrupt!' 

backed  out,  forcing  Isetan  to  put  u[ 

another  $120  million  to  protect  its  orif 

inal   $150   million   investment   in  th 

building. 

At  the  same  time,  construction  of  thi 
Beverly  Hills  Barneys,  featuring  extrava 
gant  architectural  flourishes  such  as  a 
elaborate    wrought-iron    staircase    am  J 
acid-etched  glass,  was  also  running  waJ- 
over  budget.  Because  of  a  code  viol;* 
tion,  the  Pressmans  were  forced  by  c\\l 
officials  to  add  an  underground  parkiq 
garage.  The  project  ran  between 
and  $55  million  over  budget,  dependirll 
on  whose  figures  you  believe.  In  ai| 
case,  it  was  a  lot  of  yen.  The  Pressman] 
Isetan's  Johmori  told  Time,  "were  usii-j 
money  like  water." 

Meanwhile,    the    Barneys    Amerin 
stores  were  problematic.  The  basic  caj 
cept  behind  the  stores,  as  proposed 
chief  financial   officer   Irv   Rosenth;) 
was  to  provide  the  Barneys  cachet  at. 
lower  price.  At  the  time  many  retails! 
were  openly  skeptical  that  the  Barnej 
formula  would  actually  dovetail  wn 
demographics   outside    Manhattan 
Fred  Pressman  himself  had  worries 
To  hype  the  Dallas  store,  Gene  repoj 
edly   hired   a   fleet   of  helicopters 
whisk  75  guests  to  the  center  of  tj 
Cotton  Bowl  football  field.  To  no  avs| 
Barneys'  spare  black-to-brown  fashi  | 
palette  was  squarely  rejected  by  the 
cal  ladies.  There  was  also  a  fuss  wh-j 
in -store  stylists  refused  to  do  "big  hai 
The  Pressmans  do  not  seem  to  hij 
ever  considered  halting  the  expansii 
despite  mounting  evidence  of  troul 
The  stores  tended  to  open  big,  but  sz  i 
would  quickly  drop  off.  By  1993,  12  fr  | 


86 


VANITY  FAIR /MAY 


PEACH-MUSTARD 
GLAZED   PORK   CHOPS 

1  can  peach  slices  (16  oz.) 
in  extra  light  syrup* 

1  tsp  Worcestershire  sauce 
2  Tbsp  peach  preserves 

2  Tbsp  Dijon-style  mustard 

1  tsp  blk  pepper 

4  boneless  center  cut  pork 
chops,  3/8-inch  thick 


*or  substitute  with  fresh  peaches 
&  1/2  cup  apple  or  orange  juice. 


Stir  first  four  ingredients 

together  in  bowl.  Set  aside. 

Heat  nonstick  skillet  over 

medium-high  heat;  brush 

chops  with  vegetable  oil  and 

season  with  pepper.  Brown 

on  one  side  (2-3  minutes), 

turn.  Add  peach  mixture, 

reduce  heat  to  low,  cover 

and  cook  4  minutes.  Serve 

with  peaches  and  sauce. 

Garnish  with  fresh 

raspberries.  Serves  4. 


oat  ring  up.  And  not 


just  apples.  Try  pineapples.  Or  plums 


or  berries  or  lemons  or  limes.  It's 
only  natural.  So  why  resist?  For  recipes, 
send  a  self-addressed,  stamped,  busi- 
ness-size envelope  to:  Recipes  Ad,  Box 
10383,  Des  Moines,  IA  50306.  Or  visit 
our  website  at  http://www.nppc.org/ 


. 


If  FRUIT  WAS  M 
HRST  TEMPTATION, 


WAS  PROBABLY  THE  SfCOND. 


Jpitttrient  information  per  serving:  Calories:  261,  Protein:  24  gm.,  Fat:  7  gm.,  Cholesterol:  70  mg.,  Sodium: 

mg.  Nutrient  analysis  done  by  The  Food  Processor  II  Diet  Analysis  Software.  Pork  Data  from  the  USDA  Handbook 

)  (1991).  America's  Pork  Producers  ©  1996  National  Pork  Producers  Council  in  cooperation  with  the  National  Pork  Board. 


TASTE 

WHAT'S 

NEXT 


'he  Other  White  Meat, 


Fashion 


chises,  from  Short  Hills,  New  Jersey,  to 
Seattle,  were  open— and  struggling.  (The 
Cleveland  branch  has  already  closed,  and 
Short  Hills,  one  of  the  first  to  open,  is 
still  not  profitable.) 

"To  be  titans  in  the  retail  business 
you  have  to  have  a  monumental  ego," 
says  Richard  Posner  of  the  Credit  Ex- 
change, the  Dun  &  Bradstreet  of  the 
apparel  business.  "But  they  were  pad- 
dling against  a  bleak  market,  and  ego 
won't  get  the  customer  in  the  store.  They 
wanted  to  be  the  biggest  and  the  best, 
and  they  went  for  the  top.  Hardheaded 
businessmen  they  are  not." 

Compounding  the  problem  were  the 
unexpected    budget    overruns.     Gene 
couldn't  live  with  the  downmarket  feel 
of  the  franchises,  so  he  decided  to 
do    mini-versions    of    Barneys 
with  Marino,  undermining  the 
whole  idea  of  the  lower-cost 
structure.  "Gene  was  incredi- 
bly extravagant,  and  Peter  fed 
into  that,"  says  Michael  Rat- 
ner,   president   of  Richter   & 
Ratner,  one  of  the  renovation 
firms  brought  in  by  Marino  to 
work    on    the    branch    stores. 
Some  of  the  tropical  woods, 
such  as  ipi',  a  Brazilian  hard- 
wood, came  in  small  pieces 
or  were  not  very  durable  or 
practical.  Construction  was 
always  behind  schedule,  so 
the   woods   were   sometimes 
laid  down  while  still  wet.  When 
they  dried,  they  shrank  and  left 
huge  gaps  between  the  planks 
"As  a  result,  a  year  after  they  were 
finished,  some  of  the  stores  looked  terri- 
ble," says  Ratner.  (Both  Barneys  and 
Marino  maintain  that  a  change  in  mer- 
chandising strategy  brought  about  the 
redesign  of  the  stores.) 

Marino's  renovation  of  Gene's  West- 
chester home  had  also  gone  way  over 
budget,  and  several  construction  compa- 
nies had  trouble  getting  paid.  Fred  Scil- 
iano,  the  general  contractor  on  the  job, 
reportedly  did  $800,000  worth  of  work, 
but  the  constant  changes  and  subse- 
quent financial  disputes  left  him  no  prof- 
it. In  the  end,  he  closed  his  business. 

Says  Gene  Pressman,  "All  contrac- 
tors were  fully  paid  in  accordance  with 
their  contracts." 

By  1992  it  was  apparent  that  the 
Pressmans  were  not  managing  the 
new,  bigger  Barneys  as  well  as  they 
might.  Bob,  with  Fred's  blessing,  hired 
the  accounting  firm  of  Coopers  &  Ly- 
brand  to  identify  ways  the  company 


could  be  restructured  to  ac- 
commodate growth  and  be  made  more 
profitable.  It  was  also  Bob,  some 
months  later,  who  insisted  that  Charles 
Bunstine  be  hired  away  from  Coopers 
to  become  a  senior  vice  president  at 
Barneys.  Last  year,  Bunstine  was  pro- 
moted to  president  and  C.O.O.,  despite 
his  lack  of  experience  with  large  retail 
operations.  Bunstine,  however,  did  have 
the  ability  to  serve  as  a  buffer  between 
Gene  and  Bob,  who  had  all  but  stopped 
speaking.  The  door  between  their  ad- 
joining offices  was  now  kept  locked. 


Bunstine  was  a  bac* 
slapping  corporate  poliil 
cian  who  knew  exact, 
how  to  flatter  Bob  ar 
impress  Gene  on  the  fai 
way.  He  took  charge  ir 
mediately,  becoming  the  c 
ficial  liaison  between  tl 
staff  and  the  Pressman  brot 
ers,  and  in  the  process  quic 
ly  alienated  many  loyal  ei 
ployees.  Following  his  arrival,  one  Ion 
time  executive  after  another  resigne 
Bunstine,  according  to  former  emplc 
ees,  failed  to  grasp  what  had  made  B< 
neys  special  and  seemed  to  feel  that  tl  ( 
expanded  operation  should  becon 
more  conventional.  The  creative  typ 
revolted.  "Charles  is  a  know-it-all,"  sa 
Glenn  O'Brien,  who  quit  after  10  yea 
with  the  company.  "Maybe  he  shou 
be  running  for  office." 

The  effects  of  the  creative  drain  f 
lowing  Bunstine's  1992  arrival  are  st 
being  felt:  Barneys  is  currently  short  < 
talent.  The  advertising  department,  on 


VANITY  FAIR  /MAY  1! 


— w«£ 


■~*;~^"-      .  j 


g  - 


«    l 


Yv 


-** 


Acqua  di  Gio.  A  provocation  from 

GIORGIO  ARMANI 


ACQUA  1)1 
GIORGIO  ARMANI 


■ 


Robinsons 'May 


Fashion 


so  strong  and  innovative,  hasn't  featured 
a  new,  high-profile  campaign  for  several 
seasons.  Instead,  Bonnie  Solomon,  a 
vice  president  of  advertising  who  has 
risen  rapidly  within  the  company,  has 
managed  to  alienate  some  members  of 
the  creative  community.  "Gene  wanted 
to  delegate  a  lot  of  stuff,  but  he  delegat- 
ed it  to  the  wrong  people,"  explains  a 
former  executive. 

Key  personnel  have  been  lost  to  Calvin 
Klein,  J.  Crew,  Isaac  Mizrahi,  and  Don- 
na Karan.  In  the  midst  of  the  current 
crises.  Pressman  family  members,  now 


rumors  were  true.  The  finance  charges 
on  construction  loans,  combined  with 
$2-million-a-month  lease  payments  to 
Isetan,  were  proving  too  heavy  a  bur- 
den. In  Japan,  Isetan— itself  battered  by 
recession— was  in  the  hands  of  new 
management.  Kosuge,  Gene's  generous 
buddy,  had  been  covered  with  shame 
and  kicked  upstairs  in  May  of  1993, 
ending  an  era  of  family  management. 

Kosuge's  successor,  Kazumasa  Ko- 
shiba,  was  shocked  by  the  Pressmans* 
spending.  But  he  reluctantly  ad- 


SAYONARA 

September  1993:  Bob  and  Gene  Pressman 

with  Kazumasa  Koshiba  of  Isetan. 

Isetan  is  now  reportedly  unwilling  to 

do  business  with  the 

brothers  under  any  condition. 


ubiquitous  in  the  store,  have  been  more 
sympathetic  and  complimentary  than 
usual  to  all  employees.  But  Barneys 
doesn't  have  even  a  full-time  head  of 
public  relations.  Wearing  that  hat,  and 
countless  others,  is  Simon  Doonan,  whose 
creative  talents  do  not  necessarily  extend 
to  spin  control.  Doonan's  mere  presence, 
however,  is  a  testimony  to  Gene  Press- 
man's continuing  competitiveness  and 
salesmanship.  Gene  reportedly  talked 
Doonan  out  of  taking  an  $800,000 -a-year 
job  at  Ralph  Lauren  just  weeks  before 
the  bankruptcy  was  announced. 

No  one  was  mentioning  bankruptcy  as 
the  summer  of  1993  faded,  but  there 
were  rumors  of  financial  trouble  at 
Barneys  even  before  the  new  Madison 
Avenue  store  was  seen  by  the  public.  The 

90 


vanced  an  additional  $167  million  to 
pay  the  bills.  This  time,  however,  he  in- 
sisted on  additional  security  in  the  per- 
sonal guarantees  from  both  brothers. 

In  the  fall  of  1993,  the  Madison  Avenue 
Barneys  opened  with  a  party  which 
drew  celebrities  ranging  from  Edgar 
Bronfman  Jr.  and  his  wife,  Clarissa,  to 
Spike  Lee,  Barbara  Walters,  Anne  Bass, 
Blaine  Trump,  and  Debbie  Harry.  After 
cocktails  at  the  store,  guests  made  their 
way  through  a  secret  passageway  on  the 
second  floor  into  the  Pierre.  There  the 
party  continued  with  music  by  Barry 
White  and  the  Love  Unlimited  Orchestra. 
But  the  festivities  were  soon  over- 
shadowed; firms  that  had  worked  on  the 


store  were  desperate  for  payment.  Em- 
ployees, frustrated  by  aesthetic  dictates 
that  kept  them  standing  for  hours  on 
marble  floors  (sitting  behind  the  coun- 
ters was  visually  displeasing),  laughed 
when  Peter  Marino  was  forced  to  lay 
off  a  quarter  of  his  staff  after  the  Press- 
mans  failed  to  pay  up.  When  TJie  Newt 
York  Times's  Amy  Spindler  broke  the, 
story  about  Barneys'  problems  paying 
vendors,  Charles  Bunstine  threatened  to 
have  her  fired.  "It  was  the  most  trau-i 
matic  day  of  my  career,"  she  recalls. 
Bunstine's  strong-arm  approach,  com-' 
bined  with  the  Pressmans'  history  of  at-i 
tempts  to  influence  coverage,  also  back- 
fired   when    the    bankruptcy    was    an- 
nounced. The  press,  free  at  last,  took  up 
Barneys-bashing  like  populists  weanec 
on  Wal-Mart  rations.  Maureen  Dowd  o'<  j 
The  New  York  Times  wrote  a  stinginj 
column,  lecturing  about  the  dangers  o 
"fiscal  irresponsibility"  and  comparing 
Barneys  to  Universal's  expensive  am 
highly  flogged  film  Water-world. 

The   Pressmans'   high-handednes 
fanned  flames  of  resentment.  The  co: 
pany's  faxed  Chapter  1 1  announceme 
expressed  no  apologies  or  regrets,  evei 
though  the  shortfall  coul 
close  more  than  on 
small  firm's  doom 
The  last  straw  fo 
some     came    whei 
their  frantic  calls  t 
the  company  for  iri 
formation  about  pay 
ments     went     unn 
turned.    "The    Pres; 
mans'  bravado  was  s 
unabashed,  why  shouldn* 
people  throw  brickbats  < 
them  now,"  says  Alan  Mil 
stein,  a  leading  retail  consultant  who  h<l  I 
been  critical  of  Barneys  in  the  pas 
"They  just  screwed  dozens  of  small  sujl 
pliers.  They  left  their  Christmas  bills  u 
paid.   Everyone  shipped  their  stuff  :: 
good  faith,  and  they're  probably  not  g-   I 
ing  to  see  a  penny  of  it.  It's  tragic." 

"They  owed  me  $900,000  for  over 
year,"  says  Michael  Ratner,  who  clain  I 
he  phoned  every  day  for  six  montl 
without  ever  receiving  a  return  ca 
When  Ratner  ran  into  Gene,  "1 
looked  right  through  me,  like  I  wasr 
there,"  recalls  Ratner,  who  filed  si 
and  eventually  was  paid.  "It's  the  arr 
gance  that  gets  you." 

Barneys  says  it  intends  to  pay 
vendors,  but  for  some  it  is  already  t< 
late.  Manolo,  a  former  milliner  who 
resortwear  collection  was  purchased  I 
Barneys,  says  (Continued  on  page  9 

VANITY  FAIR /MAY  15 


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(800)  5-SHREVE 


IISIIIIIII 


I  mtinued  from  page  90)  that  he  closed 
I  business  after  the  store  fell  six 
>nths  behind  in  its  payments  to  him, 
d  that  50  of  his  calls  to  Barneys  went 
answered.  "I  felt  pushed  around  and 
lored,"  Manolo  says.  Ultimately  he 
s  paid— after  a  New  York  Times  re- 
rter  picked  up  on  his  predicament.  A 
rneys  executive  brought  Manolo  the 
;ck.  "She  put  it  on  the  bench  be- 
;en  us,"  Manolo  recalls.  "She  said 
:  wanted  me  to  retract  the  statement 
ad  given  The  New  York  Times.  Then 
:  would  have  no  problem  paying 
:,"  (Barneys  says  that  Manolo's  ac- 
ant  is  totally  inaccurate.) 
At  Christmas,  Gene  Pressman  treated 

family  to  a  lavish  vacation  in  Ha- 
ii.  When  he  met  Tomio  Taki  for  a 
ind  of  golf  at  the  Honolulu  Country 
ib,  he  never  let  on  that  anything  was 
ong.  "I  think  he  was  in  denial,"  says 
ki,  whose  company  is  one  of  Bar- 
/s'  largest  creditors.  "Gene,  and 
;ryone  in  the  company,  was 
ng  on  hope." 

But  the  well  had  finally  run 
/.  Isetan  had  cut  off  the  flow 
funds.  To  cover  the  cost  over- 
is,   the   Pressmans   made   the 
inds  of  banks  and  managed,  in 
Deriod  of  18  months,  to  bor- 
v  nearly  $170  million.   Now 
amped  in  debt  and  unable  to 
.ke    payments    to    Isetan,    the 
:ssmans  decided  at  a  board  meeting 

December  20  to  officially  file  for 
ikruptcy-court  protection. 

Barney  Pressman  could  know  what 
as  become  of  his  store,  "he'd  turn 
>ver  in  his  grave,"  according  to  his 
iow,  Isabel  Pressman.  Barney  died  in 
)1  at  the  age  of  96.  For  Fred,  now  73 
i  gravely  ill,  the  bankruptcy  of  his 
nily  business  must  be  devastating.  A 
ssman  to  the  last,  however,  he  comes 
o  the  store  every  day  and  has  taken 
apartment  at  the  Regency  Hotel  so 
doesn't  have  to  commute.  A  small, 
nder  man  who  has  worn  the  same 
npled  Burberry  for  years,  he  is  still 
ng  up  to  the  showrooms  to  feel  the 
'rics  and  look  over  the  fall  lines. 
"He  came  up  a  few  weeks  ago,  and 
J  could  feel  his  suffering,"  says  Joe 
rrato,  C.E.O.  of  Brioni  U.S.A., 
jOse  family  has  been  doing  business 
;th  the  Pressmans  on  and  off  for  30 
us.  "The  Pressmans  have  a  spirit— 
^ne  people  call  it  an  attitude.  Some 
p  it,  some  don't.  But  they  built  an  in- 
dible,  quality  institution,  and  they've 
nained  a  family  business  a  long  time. 


Barneys  wouldn't  be  Barneys  without 
them.  If  they've  lost  the  store,  it  will  be 
very  sad." 

And  very  nasty.  The  two  brothers 
are  speaking  again,  but  only  because 
they  have  to.  Bob,  according  to  a  fami- 
ly source,  believes  he  is  being  set  up  by 
his  brother  as  the  fall  guy  since  he  was 
technically  in  charge  of  finances.  But 
because  of  the  way  the  family  trust  is 
structured,  no  one  had  the  power  to  act 
alone.  Gene  and  Fred  presumably  had 
to  sign  off  on  the  loans  Barneys  ob- 
tained. In  an  attempt  to  head  off 
disaster,  Bob  made  numerous  trips  to 
Tokyo— without  Gene— in  1994  and 
1995.  A  source  close  to  the  Pressmans 
claims  that  Bob  tried  to  persuade  the 
Japanese  to  convert  their  investment 
and  the   loans   personally  guaranteed 


"The  Pressmans  built  an 
incredible,  quality  institution. 
If  they've  lost  the  store, 


it  will  be  very  sad.77 


into  equity  equaling  up  to  49  percent 
of  Barneys.  Gene  had  opposed  giving 
Isetan  equity.  But,  according  to  the 
source,  "Bob  convinced  Fred  to  pres- 
sure Gene  to  agree." 

Barneys'  current  suit  is  essentially  an 
attempt  to  enforce  the  equity  agree- 
ment, which  Isetan  denies  ever  making. 
Its  lawyers  at  Hughes  Hubbard  &  Reed 
say  that  a  March  1994  document,  used 
as  evidence  of  an  equity  solution,  is 
merely  a  statement  of  Barneys'  willing- 
ness to  discuss  such  a  solution.  They 
say  that  it  was,  in  fact,  Isetan  which  de- 
manded the  commitment  from  Bar- 
neys. Isetan's  position  is  that  they  own 
the  three  showcase  stores  in  New  York, 
Beverly  Hills,  and  Chicago,  and  they 
expect  the  Pressmans  to  pay  rent  and 
repay  the  $170  million  in  loans  which 
were  personally  guaranteed. 

For  the  time  being,  it  is  business  as 
usual  for  Barneys.  But  for  how  long? 
The  Oscar-night  parties  planned  with 
Entertainment  Tonight  for  Mad.  61  and 
Barney  Greengrass,  the  store  restaurant 
in  Beverly  Hills,  were  canceled,  and, 
with  Barneys  vulnerable,  Pino  Luongo 


(who  has  reportedly  wanted  out  of  his 
restaurant  partnerships  with  the  Press- 
mans for  some  time)  has  taken  owner- 
ship of  Coco  Pazzo  and  Le  Madri  and 
has  given  Barneys  ownership  of  the  far 
less  prestigious  in-store  restaurants  at 
some  Barneys  franchises.  In  the  stores 
themselves,  the  racks  are  still  filled  with 
impossibly  hip  black  clothes.  With  the 
court  cutting  the  checks,  most  designers 
are  shipping  their  lines,  though  they 
don't  know  how  much  of  their  earlier 
losses  will  be  recovered.  Incredibly,  the 
Pressmans  snagged  new  loans  of  $120 
million  from  Chemical  and  other  lend- 
ers. But  Seventh  Avenue  has  the  jitters. 
In  late  March,  Republic  National  Bank, 
owed  in  excess  of  $25  million,  sold  its 
loan  to  a  "vulture  fund."  The  private 
debt  broker  paid  a  reported  38  cents  on 
the  dollar. 

But,  even  though  they  are  furious,  Ise- 
tan, which  has  hundreds  of  millions  of 
dollars  at  stake,  doesn't  want  to  see 
Barneys  disappear.  "It's  a  great 
institution  and  it  should  contin- 
ue," says  Isetan's  counsel  How- 
ard Kaufman,  a  partner  with 
Hughes  Hubbard  &  Reed.  "But 
perhaps  not  with  the  Pressmans 
running  it." 

By  late  spring,  it  is  possible  that 
the  Pressmans  could  be  out  of  the 
store  they  built— forever.  And  despite 
their  assurances  to  the  contrary,  it  is  al- 
most inevitable  that  some  Barneys  stores 
will  have  to  close. 

Sources  at  Isetan  say  that  the  cur- 
rent standoff  might  have  been  avoided 
if  the  Pressmans  hadn't  been  so  contin- 
ually and  unrepentantly  arrogant.  "If 
they  had  reacted  reasonably,  and  said 
they  were  sorry,  it  would  be  one  thing," 
says  a  source  close  to  Isetan's  manage- 
ment, "but  they  have  never  apologized 
to  the  Japanese."  Barneys  says  that  it 
made  repeated  attempts  to  negotiate  a 
solution,  but  that  "it  was  the  financial 
equivalent  of  eating  sushi  with  one 
chopstick." 

Carl  Portale,  who  spent  the  holidays 
in  Hawaii  with  Gene,  says  Pressman  has 
not  been  humbled  by  recent  events. 
"He's  still  holding  his  head  up  high," 
marvels  Portale.  "He  beat  me  in  a 
round  of  golf  on  December  29.  He  shot 
an  82.  When  I  found  out  afterward 
[about  the  bankruptcy],  I  thought  it  was 
absolutely  incredible.  He  was  so  cool." 

Why  not?  Gene  Pressman  is  still 
thinking  big.  When  an  advertising  exec- 
utive asked  him  how  he  was  doing, 
Gene  just  shrugged  and  said,  "Now 
I'm  more  famous  than  ever."  □ 


HTY  FAIR  /MAY  1996 


93 


s< 


Aai^H     nd  so  we  mourn  the  passing  of  Baroness  Marie^ 

■  H     Helene  de  Rothschild,  the  great  hostess  of  Paris. 

■  ^H    where  parties  are  considered  an  art  form.  Com- 

■  ^H    bmiug  the  extravagance  of  Mario  Antoinette's 

■  ^H   royal  fetes  with  the  eclecticism  o\'  Marie-Laurfl 

■  H  de  Noailles's  pre-war  soirees,  the  balls  and  din- 
ners she  gave  at  Ferrieres,  the  Rothschilds'  chateau  outside 
Paris,  and  at  the  Hotel  Lambert,  their  town  house  on  the  Ilei 
St.-Louis,  drew  everyone  from  the  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Windi 
sor  to  Brigitte  Bardot,  and  bore  testament  to  her  social  power- 
as  well  as  to  the  indulgence  of  her  husband.  Baron  Guy,  head 
of  the  French  branch  of  the  Rothschild  banking  dynasty. 

Marie-Helene  van  Zuylen  de  Nyevelt  was  born  ic 
New  York  in  1927  to  an  Egyptian  socialite  and  a  Dutch 
diplomat  whose  mother  was  a  Rothschild.  In  1951  shef 
married  Count  Francois  de  Nicolay,  and  divorced  hirr 
six  years  later  to  wed  Baron  Guy,  who  divorced  his  firs 
wife  at  the  same  time.  She  had  one  son  by  each  mar. 
riage.  In  1971  she  gave  her  legendary  Proust  ball,  foi 
which  le  tout  Paris  came  as  characters  from  Remem 
brance  of  Things  Past.  At  her  1972  Surrealist  ball,  sru 
received  her  guests  wearing  a  stag's-head  mask  toppeo 
with  gold  antlers. 
More  than  600  friends  squeezed  into  the  church  on  the  Dfl 
St.-Louis  for  her  funeral  Mass.  "It  went  from  the  woman  wh< 
did  her  nails  at  Carita  to  Alain  Delon,"  said  Princess  Laure  d 
Beauvau  Craon.  In  the  front  pews:  First  Lady  Bernadett 
Chirac,  Valery  Giscard  d'Estaing,  Claude  Pompidou,  Giann 
and  Marella  Agnelli,  Oscar  de  la  Renta,  and  a  dozen  Rotr 
schilds.  As  her  lace-draped  coffin  was  carried  to  the  waitin 
hearse,  the  air-raid  sirens  that  go  off  once  a  month  in  Pari 
pierced  the  air.  Yves  Saint  Laurent  noted,  "La  Baronne  d 
Rothschild  possessed  a  charm  that  could  not  be  resisted."  D 

VANITY  FAIR /MAY  19S 


Come  as 


are. 


Life's  a  party...  are  you  dressed  for  it? 

a  liz  claibarne 


Claiborne,  New  York 


Media 


v/i 


THE  MORROW  BRIGADE 

As  Hitler  gobbled  up  Europe,  Edward  R. 
Murrow  and  William  L.  Shirer  held  America 

transfixed  with  their  radio  broadcasts. 

But  as  a  new  book  reveals,  their  friendship 

would  be  shattered  by  fame,  fortune, 

and  CBS  chairman  Bill  Paley 

BY  STANLEY  CLOUD  AND  LYNNE  OLSON 


4 


OXFORD 
CIRCUS 


=1:3 


Kfefc«i 


X 


Oefore  and  during  World 
War  II,  the  great  CBS  jour- 
nalist Edward  R.  Murrow 
assembled  a  group  of  1 1  ra- 
dio correspondents  known 
as  "the  Murrow  Boys." 
Who  coined  the  term  and  when  it  came 
into  general  usage  are  unclear,  but  it  was 
considered  a  sobriquet  of  honor.  Those 
Boys  personally  hired  by  Murrow  who 
became  his  close  friends  were  Charles 
Collingwood,  William  Downs,  Richard 

96 


Edward  R.  Murrow  and  William  Shirer, 

left,  at  CBS  in  New  York,  1942.  Above,  Murrow 

in  London  in  1939,  a  year  before  the  Blitz. 


C.  Hottelet,  Larry  LeSueur,  Eric  Sev- 
areid,  and  William  L.  Shirer.  Of  all  of 
them,  Shirer  had  by  far  the  most  compli- 
cated relationship  with  the  man  who  rev- 
olutionized news  broadcasting. 

When  the  two  men  joined  forces  in 
1937,  Edward  R.  Murrow  was  only  29 
years  old  and  had  no  real  journalistic 
experience.  But  he  was  tall,  lean,  and 
likable,  and  there  was  genius  in  him,  or 
at  least  startling  precocity.  He  had 
piercing  eyes  and  gleaming  teeth  (al- 


though neglect  and  incessant  cigarej 
smoking  would  damage  them  terribly 
only  a  few  years).  People  always  i| 
ticed  Ed  Murrow.  He  wore  Savile  R>\ 
pinstripes  and  had  erased  every  vest 
of  his  dirt-poor  North  Carolina  origi 
Though  William  Shirer  was  almost-) 

Excerpted  from  Tlie  Murrow  Boys:  Pioneers 
on  the  Front  Lines  of  Broadcast  Journalism, 
by  Stanley  Cloud  and  Lynne  Olson,  to  be 
published  next  month  by  Houghton  Mifflin 
Co.;  ©1996  by  the  authors. 

VANITY  FAIR /MAY 


Media 


tall  as  Murrow,  he  somehow  appeared 
short  and  dumpy.  He  came  from  a  very 
intellectual,  though  relatively  poor,  mid- 
western  family.  He  was  only  four  years 
older  than  Murrow,  but  his  sandy  hair 
was  already  receding  at  an  alarming 
rate.  He  wore  a  small,  mannered  mus- 
tache. His  glasses  were  thick  and  met- 
al-rimmed, and  he  had  a  blind  eye  (the 
result  of  a  skiing  accident  in  1932). 
His  off-the-rack  clothes  were  rumpled, 
his  shoes  in  need  of  polish. 

While  Murrow's  rich  baritone  was 
one  of  his  many  striking 
features,  Shirer's  voice 
was  thin  and  reedy.  Mur- 
row strove  to  create  a 
bon  vivant's  persona, 
but  it  was  Shirer  who  ac- 
tually lived  the  good 
life,  who  savored  fine 
food  and  wine,  who  ap- 
preciated and  pursued 
(deep  into  old  age)  beau- 
tiful women.  Murrow 
was  a  man's  man  in  an 
era  when  that  meant 
hunting,  fishing,  smok- 
ing, drinking,  and  work- 
ing. He  was  not  an  es- 
pecially deep  thinker  or 
voracious  reader.  Shirer, 
on  the  other  hand,  was 
an  experienced  foreign 
correspondent  who  cul- 
tivated intellectuals. 


debates  at  the  League  of  Nations,  for  ex- 
ample, or  coronations,  or  the  speeches  of 
statesmen.  Or,  to  cite  a  pre-World  War 
II  highlight  of  international  broadcasting: 
CBS's  live  presentation  in  1932  of  a 
nightingale  singing  from  England's  Sur- 
rey woods.  So  successful  was  the  pro- 
gram that  radio  editors  voted  it  the  most 
interesting  of  that  year. 

Murrow  had  been  transferred  to  Lon- 
don in  1937  to  become  CBS's  European 
"director  of  talks."  Before  he  left  New 
York,  he  was  advised  that  the  broadcast 


After  December  1940,  Shirer,  left,  lived  a  life  of  comfort 

in  New  York  while  Murrow  continued  to  wear  a  war  correspondent's 

uniform  and  report  from  London. 


conferences  in  the  United  States  an 
Europe.  In  1934  he  became  involved 
helping  Jewish  academics  immigrate  til 
America   from   an   increasingly  anti 
Semitic  Germany.  That  same  year  ll 
married  Janet  Brewster,  from  a  promi 
nent  but  not  wealthy  Connecticut  famil 
ly.  In  September    1935,   Murrow  wal 
hired  by  CBS,  and  in  April  1937  bjl 
was  dispatched  to  London  as  Europeaij 
representative. 

Later  that  year,  when  New  Yorll 
agreed  to  expand  the  network's  Eurcj 
pean  operations,  MuiJ 
row  decided  to  hire  ail 
honest-to-God  foreigij 
correspondent.  At  tbf 
suggestion  of  Ferdinanil 
Kuhn  of  The  New  Yoni 
Times,  he  got  in  touclJ 
with  Bill  Shirer  in  Berlnl 


A 

n 


si;.l-<Sk^  ~-"^ 

ZOTr.7"J^    i~" 

[    IlK'  iT** 

graduate  of  Coe  Co  | 
lege  in  Cedar  Rap 
ids,  Iowa,  Shirer 
come  to  Europe  12  year  J 
before.  He  had  travel&ll 
extensively  and  ha 
worked  for  both  tbn 
Paris  Tribune,  an  ofiJ 
shoot  of  Colonel  RobeiJ 
McCormick's  Chicag\ 
Tribune,  and  the  rivjj 
Paris  Herald.  Then,  fcl 
Hearst's  Universal  New 
Service,  he  had  covered 
Hitler's  rally  in  Nureal 


Despite  their  differences,  or  because 
of  them,  Ed  Murrow  and  Bill  Shirer 
were,  for  a  few  intense  years,  closer  to 
each  other  than  either  would  ever  be  to 
anyone  else,  wives  and  lovers  included. 
Theirs  was  an  extraordinary  friendship, 
and  after  it  shattered  a  decade  later,  the 
shattering  would  haunt  them  both  for 
the  rest  of  their  lives. 

For  most  foreign  correspondents  sta- 
tioned in  Europe  at  the  time,  "radio 
news"  was  an  oxymoron.  America's 
two  largest  radio  networks— William 
Paley's  CBS  and  David  Sarnoff's  NBC- 
had  no  reporters  of  their  own  crisscross- 
ing the  globe  to  find  the  news  and  relay 
it,  with  explanation  and  analysis,  to  the 
people  back  home.  Instead,  the  networks 
had  people  like  the  early  Murrow:  func- 
tionaries whose  job  was  not  to  report  but 
to  arrange  broadcasts  of  various  kinds— 

98 


of  the  nightingale  was  the  standard  by 
which  his  performance  would  be  judged. 
When  he  tried  to  join  the  American 
foreign  correspondents'  association  in 
London,  his  application  was  summarily 
rejected.  He  clearly  wasn't  a  foreign 
correspondent,  and  nothing  in  his  back- 
ground suggested  he  ever  would— or 
could— join  that  elite  fraternity. 

His  real  name  was  Egbert  Roscoe 
Murrow.  He  was  born  April  25,  1908, 
in  Polecat  Creek,  North  Carolina,  a 
hamlet  with  no  automobiles,  telephones, 
or  electricity.  His  father  was  an  impov- 
erished dirt  farmer,  badly  henpecked 
by  his  humorless,  pious  wife.  After 
graduating  from  Washington  State  Col- 
lege in  1930,  Murrow  worked  for  the 
National  Student  Federation  of  America 
and,  later,  the  Institute  of  International 
Education  as  an  organizer  of  student 


berg  in  1934.  By  1937  he  was  in  the  to 
rank    of   foreign    correspondents   an 
friendly  with  the  most  famous  of  his  B 
rope-based   colleagues— John   Gunth 
Frank  Gervasi,  Vincent  Sheean,  Dorotr 
Thompson,  James  Thurber,  and  Sincl; 
Lewis.  Moreover,  after  six  years  of  mi 
riage,  his  Austrian  wife,  Tess,  was 
nant.  Life,  Shirer  thought,  was  final 
what  he  had  hoped  it  could  be.  The: 
on  August   14,  he  was  informed  th; 
Universal  was  shutting  down.  Ten  da; 
later  Shirer  was  out. 

That  same  day  he  received  a  cabl 
gram  from  London.  It  read:  can  yc 

MEET  ME  ADLON  [HOTEL]  8/27  FOR  DP 
NER?    MURROW,    COLUMBIA    BROADCAS 

ing.  Shirer  had  no  idea  what  it  w; 
about,  and  frankly  he  didn't  much  car 
He  had  left  America  before  rad 
amounted  to  anything,  and  he  rarely  1 

VANITY  FAIR/MAY  19 


' 
^ 


The  season's 


Media 


tened  to  it  in  Europe.  Still,  if  you're  out 
of  work,  a  free  dinner  is  a  free  dinner. 

Shirer  at  first  dismissed  Murrow  as 
just  another  handsome  face  in  a  custom 
suit.  By  the  time  they  adjourned  to  the 
Adlon  bar  for  drinks,  though,  he  had 
revised  his  opinion.  Murrow  was  an 
evangelist  for  radio.  He  acknowledged 
that  the  new  medium  hadn't  yet  ful- 
filled its  promise,  especially  where 
news  was  concerned.  But  it  would 
someday,  and  he  and  Shirer  could  help 
make  it  happen.  He  offered  Shirer  a 
job  at  the  same  salary  Hearst  had  been 
paying— $125  a  week. 

"Is  it  a  deal?"  Murrow  asked,  and 


Murrow  argued  that  White,  as  a  former 
newspaperman,  should  know  better  than 
to  expect  a  golden -throated  announcer. 
War  was  coming.  Finally  White  caved. 

CBS  decided  that  the  best  place  for 
Shirer  wasn't  Berlin  but  Vienna.  Af- 
ter he  and  the  pregnant  Tess  moved 
to  the  city  of  her  birth,  however,  Shirer 
felt  that  his  hands  were  tied.  Austria  was 
one  large  tinderbox,  and  Hitler,  deter- 
mined to  annex  his  homeland,  was  ready 
to  put  a  match  to  it.  The  country's 
economy  was  declining,  its  people  disaf- 
fected; anti-Semitism  was  on  the  rise.  In 
those  early  months  of  1938,  Shirer  and 


Sofia  on  February  26,  the  Austrian  gov- 
ernment was  crumbling.  Tess  required 
an  emergency  cesarean  section  to  save 
her  life  and  the  baby's.  To  make  matters 
worse,  Shirer  was  promptly  dispatched  | 
to  Yugoslavia  for  yet  another  music 
broadcast.  He  returned  on  March  11  to 
find  that  Tess  had  phlebitis.  Outside  the 
hospital,  a  Nazi  mob  was  rampaging. 
The  chancellor  had  resigned.  Austria 
was  about  to  be  swallowed  by  Hitler. 

Shirer  had  the  biggest  story  of  his  life, 
and  he  seemed  to  have  it  to  himself-  ■ 
NBC's  correspondent  Max  Jordan  was 
out  of  town.  This  time  Shirer  wasn't  go- 
ing to  listen  to  New  York.  He  was  going 
to  report  what  he  knew.  He  rushed  tc 


Shirer  said,  "I  .  .  .  I  .  .  . 
guess  so."  They  celebrat- 
ed over  brandy.  "Oh, 
there  is  one  little  thing  I 
forgot  to  mention,"  Mur- 
row said.  "The  .  .  .  uh 
.  .  .  voice." 

CBS's  New  York  ex- 
ecutives were  demand- 
ing a  voice  test  before 
agreeing  to  Murrow's 
choice  for  the  job.  Nine 
days  later,  practically 
paralyzed  with  nervous- 
ness, Shirer  reported  to 
a  dingy  room  in  the 
government  telegraph  of- 
fice in  Berlin.  The  offi- 
cial German  broadcast- 
ing studios  were  not 
available  to  CBS,  he  was 
informed,  because  Ger- 
man radio  had  an  exclu- 
sive arrangement  with 
NBC.  But  he  could  have 
a  microphone  and  any- 
thing else  he  needed. 

It  turned  out  to  be 
hopeless.  When  he  started  talking,  his 
voice  quivered  and,  more  than  once, 
jumped  an  octave.  Afterward,  he  didn't 
hear  anything  for  nearly  a  week.  Then 
Murrow  called  with  astounding  news: 
"The  bastards  in  New  York  finally  came 
through.  They  think  you're  terrific." 

Actually,  the  bastards  in  New  York 
had  hated  Shirer's  voice  and  tried  to 
prevent  Murrow  from  hiring  him.  Paul 
White,  the  director  of  news  and  special 
events,  was  particularly  opposed.  Hav- 
ing listened  to  the  tryout  broadcast,  he 
decreed  that  Shirer  just  wouldn't  do. 

100 


William  Shirer's  crowning  moment  as  a  war  correspondent: 

he  scoops  NBC  and  German  radio  in  reporting  France's  humiliating 

armistice  with  Germany  at  Compiegne,  June  1940. 


Murrow  tried  to  persuade  New  York  to 
allow  them  to  report  what  was  happen- 
ing, but  Paul  White  refused,  saying  that 
was  not  the  job  they  had  been  hired  for. 

In  February  the  Austrian  chancellor, 
Kurt  von  Schuschnigg,  capitulated  to 
Hitler's  demand  that  Austria  lift  its  ban 
on  the  Nazi  Party.  It  was  Austria's  death 
warrant.  Shirer  asked  CBS  for  15  min- 
utes of  airtime  to  explain  what  had  oc- 
curred. New  York  wasn't  interested;  Shi- 
rer was  ordered  to  Sofia  for  a  broadcast 
of  a  Bulgarian  children's  choir. 

By  the  time  he  returned  home  from 


the  Austrian  state  radic  i 
building,  where  men  ir 
Nazi  uniforms  refused  t( 
let  him  use  a  studio.  De> 
jected,  he  returned  to  nil 
apartment  and  was  hav: 
ing  his  second  beer  whei 
Ed  Murrow  called.   Hi 
told  Shirer  to  get  on  ; 
plane    to    London.    A 
soon  as  he  arrived,  hi 
should  go  on  the  air  am 
give  the  first  uncensorec 
eyewitness    account    o 
the     Anschluss.     Mear. 
while,    Murrow     woul<  I 
come  to  Vienna  to  cove  , 
for  him. 

For  Shirer,  nothing  wai 
more     important     tha    i 
this  story,  not  even  h 
critically  ill  wife.  Sever  J 
teen  hours  later  he  wa   ) 
sitting  in  a  BBC  studi* 
in    London,    earphone 
on,  listening  to  the  CB 
announcer  in  New  Yor>  i 
say,  "We  take  you  now  to  London."  A    ; 
ter  six  of  the  most  frustrating  montl 
he'd  ever  known,  Bill  Shirer  was  finall 
triumphantly,  broadcasting  the  news. 

But  he  wasn't  first.  NBC's  Max  Jo 
dan,  on  learning  of  Austria's  fate,  ha 
hustled  back  to  Vienna.  While  Shirer 
plane  to  London  was  still  in  the  air,  Jo 
dan  had  talked  his  way  into  the  Austria 
radio  studio  and  submitted  his  hasti 
typed  script  to  the  censor. 

In  New  York,  hearing  of  Jordan 
broadcast,  Bill  Paley  was  frantic.  Um 
the  Nazi  takeover  of  Austria,  he  h< 

VANITY  FAIR /MAY  19 


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;ided  with  Paul  White  and  stuck  to 
3BS's  policy  of  opposing  any  reporting 
?y  the  network's  employees  in  Europe. 
Reporting  could  easily  lead  to  editorial- 
izing, to  taking  sides.  But  the  Anschluss 
changed  Paley's  mind.  NBC  was  trounc- 
'  ng  CBS!  White  phoned  Shirer  in  Lon- 
don. "We  want  a  European  roundup 
wnight,"  White  said— a  30-minute  broad- 
past  on  the  European  reaction  to  the  An- 
lichluss,  with  Shirer  and  a  member  of 
Parliament  in  London,  Murrow  in  Vien- 
;ia,  and  American  newspaper  correspon- 
dents in  Paris,  Berlin,  and  Rome.  Noth- 
ing like  this  had  ever  been  put  together 
before,  and  Shirer  and  Murrow  had 
liight  hours  to  do  it.  Murrow  persuaded 
,he  Germans  to  give  him  a  phone  line 
;rom  Vienna  to  Berlin,  where  his  broad- 
bast  could  be  picked  up  and  relayed  by 
iihortwave  to  New  York.  Special  lines 
Uere  arranged  for  Paris,  and  newspaper 
I  correspondents  were  tracked  down.  With 
jittle  more  than  two  hours  to  go,  Shirer 
kill  hadn't  located  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment, and  one  of  the  correspondents 
he'd  found,  Frank  Gervasi  of  the  Inter- 
national News  Service,  reported  that  the 
(Italians  could  not  arrange  his  broadcast 
bn  such  short  notice.  Shirer  told  Gervasi 
|:o  dictate  his  story  to  London  and  he 
would  read  it  for  him.  Then  Shirer  at 
fast  located  Labour  M.P  Ellen  Wilkin- 
son in  the  country,  and  she  agreed  to 
"ush  back  to  London.  Fifteen  minutes 
before  the  roundup  was  to  go  on  the  air, 
ii  breathless  Wilkinson  arrived  at  the 
BBC  studios,  and  Gervasi  was  still  dic- 
tating his  piece  to  a  stenographer. 

Finally,  on  March  14,  at  one  a.m. 
London  time,  eight  p.m.  in  New  York, 
an  exhausted  Shirer  put  on  his  ear- 
phones and  heard  announcer  Robert 
Trout  say,  "The  program  St.  Louis  Blues 
tvill  not  be  heard  tonight."  In  its  place 
would  be  a  special  report,  a  "radio  tour 
if  Europe's  capitals,  starting  with  a 
transoceanic  pickup  from  London." 

And  Shirer  was  on.  Nothing  in  his 
isoft,  flat  voice  indicated  either  the  ex- 
citement he  felt  or  the  crushing  pressure 
he  had  endured  over  the  last  few  hours. 
He  opened  by  predicting  that  Britain 
would  do  little  to  stem  the  aggression  of 
Hitler.  The  other  correspondents  and 
Ellen  Wilkinson  took  their  turns  analyz- 
ing the  apathetic  reaction  of  European 
governments  to  Hitler's  rapacity.  As 
promised,  Shirer  read  Gervasi's  dis- 
patch. And  Murrow  sketched  a  subtly 
minister  picture  of  a  transformed  Vienna: 
"The  crowds  are  courteous  as  they've  al- 
ways been,  but  many  people  are  in  a 
holiday  mood;  they  lift  the  right  arm  a 

Vanity  fair /may  1996 


little  higher  here  than  in  Berlin  and  the 
'Heil  Hitler'  is  said  a  little  more  loudly." 

Thirty  minutes  later  the  first  European 
roundup  ended,  on  time  to  the  second.  A 
jubilant  Paul  White  was  on  the  phone  to 
Shirer.  The  broadcast  was  a  triumph,  he 
said,  "so  much  so  that  we  want  another 
one  tomorrow  night— tonight,  your  time. 
Can  you  do  it?"  Shirer  didn't  even  pause. 
"No  problem,"  he  shouted. 

With  that  first  roundup,  CBS  and  ra- 
dio in  general  were  on  their  way  to  be- 
coming full-fledged  news  sources.  Shirer 
and  Murrow  proved  that  radio  was  able 
not  only  to  report  news  as  it  occurred 
but  also  to  put  it  in  context,  to  link  it 
with  news  from  elsewhere— and  to  do  all 
that  with  unprecedented  speed  and  im- 
mediacy. They  set  in  motion  a  chain  of 
events  that  would  lead,  in  only  one  year, 
to  radio's  emergence  as  America's  chief 
news  medium  and  to  the  beginning  of 
CBS's  decades-long  dominance  of  broad- 
cast journalism. 

Shirer  and  Murrow  had  agreed  that 
when  Tess  was  strong  enough  the  Shi- 
rers  would  move  to  neutral  Geneva, 
where  Bill  could  cover  Hitler's  next 
move  free  of  Nazi  censorship.  Murrow 
flew  from  London  to  join  the  Shirers  for 


a  short  holiday  in  nearby  Lausanne,  and 
for  several  blissful  days  they  swam, 
drank,  and  talked  of  the  war  they  were 
sure  was  coming  and  of  their  need  for 
more  correspondents  to  help  cover  it. 
The  problem  was  that  Paley,  White,  and 
most  Americans  were  losing  interest 
again  in  foreign  news  as  the  Anschluss 
crisis  faded.  The  news  roundups  were 
discontinued. 

Then,  in  September  of  that  year,  Ger- 
many turned  its  gaze  on  Czechoslovakia, 
and  Hitler  claimed  the  Sudetenland.  On 
September  10,  Shirer  went  to  Prague  to 
monitor  the  crisis.  Before  he  left,  he  sug- 
gested to  New  York  that  he  do  daily  five- 
minute  broadcasts  from  Prague.  They 
consented— if  Shirer  would  promise  to  re- 
linquish the  time  whenever  there  was  not 
enough  news  to  fill  it.  "My  God!"  he  lat- 
er wrote.  "Here  was  the  old  continent  on 
the  brink  of  war  .  .  .  and  the  network 
was  most  reluctant  to  provide  five  min- 
utes a  day  from  here  to  report  it!" 

Soon,  though,  Americans  sat  riveted 
to  their  radios,  intently  listening  for  the 
cues  from  CBS  in  New  York— "Calling 
Edward  R.  Murrow"  and  "Come  in, 
William  L.  Shirer"— then  listening  for  the 
voices  themselves,  cutting  through  the 
shortwave  whine  and  stutter  and  crackle. 


ST.  PETERSBURG  •  THAILAND  •  ROME  •  PROVENCE  •  THE  HOLY  LAND 


A  suite  at  <J  rvc/  ^J^aWa^  <JcJLclcjls  is  a  plus. . . 

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f 

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Knopr  Guides    j 


TO    THE    GREAT    PLACES    OF    THE    WORLD 

Lavishly  illustrated, 
brimming  with  information, 
designed  to  indulge  the  reader 
in  all  the  luxuries  of  fine  travel. 


101 


Media 


On  September  30,  Shirer  was  in  Munich 
when  the  leaders  of  Europe's  two  great- 
est democracies,  British  prime  minister 
Neville  Chamberlain  and  French  premier 
Edouard  Daladier,  handed  the  Sudeten- 
land  to  Hitler. 

There  was  no  question  that  CBS  out- 
shone NBC— not  to  mention  the  other, 
smaller  network,  Mutual  (ABC  would 
not  come  along  until  1943)— in  the  days 
leading  up  to  Munich  and  at  the  confer- 
ence itself.  An  exhilarated  Bill  Paley  ca- 
bled Murrow  and  Shirer,  "Columbia's 
coverage  of  European  crisis  superior  to 
its  competitors  and  is  probably  the  best 
job  ever  done  in  radio  broadcasting." 

More  and  more  American  reporters 


could  only  listen  in  on  headphones  now 
as  Shirer  did  his  broadcasts  from  Berlin 
to  still-neutral  America. 

In  Berlin,  Shirer  was  cut  off  not  only 
from  Murrow  but  also  from  Tess  and 
their  little  daughter  in  Geneva  and,  of 
course,  the  real  news.  Most  of  the  news 
he  received  had  a  distinctly  Nazi  slant. 
Shirer  used  insinuation  and  irony  to 
work  his  way  around  network  rules  and 
Nazi  censorship.  When  the  German 
press  insisted  that  the  Poles  were  firing 
on  their  own  capital  city,  Shirer  report- 
ed in  a  bemused  voice,  "There  was  a 
headline  that  struck  me  tonight:  poles 
bombard  Warsaw.  I  thought  it  was  a 
misprint  until  I  read 


ported,  "reminded  me  of  the  coaches  of' 
champion  football  teams  at  home,  who* 
sit  calmly  on  the  sidelines  and  watch  the 
machines  they  created  do  their  stuff.  It  I 
was  both  tragic  and  grotesque.  Grotesque 
that  we  should  be  watching  the  killing  as' 
if  it  were  a  football  game." 

As  1940  began,  Murrow  cabled  Berlin 
and  instructed  Shirer  to  meet  hinr 
for  a  little  rest  and  recreation  im 
neutral  Amsterdam.  Dazzled  by  thei 
lights  and  abundant  food,  delighted  tc 
be  in  each  other's  company  again,  thci 
two  friends  behaved,  as  Shirer  wrote  ir 
his  diary,  "like  a  couple  of  youngster; 


headed  across  the  Atlantic  dur- 
ing the  summer  of  1939,  drawn 
by  the  knowledge  that  in  jour- 
nalism war  meant  good  jobs. 
Murrow  let  it  be  known  that 
CBS  was  in  the  market  for  jour- 
nalists who  thought  they  could 
make  the  transition  from  print 
to  radio.  Soon  he  hired  Thomas 
Grandin,  a  30 -year-old  Yalie, 
and  Eric  Sevareid,  a  handsome 
26 -year-old  reporter  at  the 
Paris  Herald. 

In  Berlin  on  August  31,  Shi- 
rer listened  on  headphones  to  a 
German  broadcast  of  the  Nazi 
terms  for  peace  in  Poland  and 
simultaneously  translated  for  his 
American  listeners.  That  night, 
Germany  shut  down  its  long: 
distance  phone  lines.  Shirer 
went  to  bed  feeling  completely 
shut  off  from  the  rest  of  the 
world.  At  six  the  next  morning, 
he  was  awakened  by  a  call  from 
Sigrid  Schultz,  the  Berlin  correspondent 
of  the  Chicago  Tribune.  "It's  happened," 
she  said.  Germany  had  invaded  Poland. 
World  War  II  had  begun. 

A  week  after  Germany  invaded  Poland 
and  direct  communications  between 
England  and  Germany  were  cut  off, 
Murrow  was  telling  American  listeners 
what  this  war  had  done  to  his  friendship 
with  Shirer.  "Other  than  official  news 
broadcasts,  his  is  the  only  voice  from 
Berlin  I'm  likely  to  hear  in  a  long  time 
and  his  voice  reaches  me  by  way  of 
New  York,"  said  a  wistful  Murrow.  He 

102 


CBS  president  William  Paley,  right,  honored  Murrow 
for  his  distinguished  European  reporting  at  a  dinner 
at  the  Waldorf-Astoria  in  New  York  in  November  1941, 
one  month  before  America  entered  the  war. 


the  story  under  it,  which  turned  out  to 
be  an  official  communique  of  the  [Ger- 
man] High  Command."  The  fine  print 
of  the  communique,  Shirer  noted,  ac- 
knowledged that  the  Polish  bombard- 
ment was  actually  aimed  at  the  attack- 
ing German  troops. 

Shirer  also  used  popular  American 
slang  to  get  some  of  his  dispatches  past 
German  censors.  There  were  times,  how- 
ever, when  he  couldn't  quite  disguise  his 
passion.  In  late  September  Shirer  and 
other  journalists  watched  the  Luftwaffe 
bomb  the  virtually  defenseless  Polish 
town  of  Gdynia.  German  officers,  he  re- 


suddenly  escaped  from  a  sterrr 
old  aunt  or  reform  school." 

Their  exuberance  was  evidem 
in  the  one  broadcast  they  didi 
there  together: 

Shirer:  You  have  no  idea  wha; 
it's  like  to  get  into  a  city  and  se« 
the  streets  all  lighted  up. 

Murrow:  What  do  you  meau 
I've  got  no  idea?  I  saw  streeie 
lights,  automobiles  with  re£ 
headlights,  and  lights  pourinr 
out  of  windows  tonight  for  thl 
first  time  in  five  months. 

Murrow  ended  the  broadcast 
by  saying,  "Bill,  let's  go  out 
and  throw  snowballs."  Which  i 
exactly  what  they  did. 


In   June,    Shirer   was   havin: 
lunch  in  Berlin  when  he  hear 
about  the  fall  of  Paris.  H 
rushed  to  Paris  and  picked  ui 
a  tip  from  one  of  his  German 
army  sources  that  the  armistic 
would  be  signed  in  the  wooc» 
of  Compiegne,  north  of  Paris,  whet 
Germany  had  been  forced  to  sign  the  hi 
miliating  surrender  that  ended  Worl 
War  I.  In  Compiegne,  Shirer  discovere 
German -army  engineers  tearing  out  tr 
wall  of  the  museum  that  housed  the  rai 
road  car  in  which  the  1918  surrender  ha 
been  signed.  The  car,  he  was  told,  was  1 
be  moved  to  the  exact  spot  where  it  ha 
stood  22  years  earlier. 

The  next  afternoon,  Shirer  watche 
the  armistice  participants  arrive.  Fir 
came  Hitler,  who  stepped  from  his  Mac 
Mercedes  and  strode  toward  the  clearir 
and  the  railroad  car.  The  Fuhrer's  expre 

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Mrilia 


sion  was  grave,  but  Shirer  remarked  "in 
his  springy  step,  a  note  of  the  triumphant 
conqueror."  The  French  generals,  their 
faces  like  marble,  arrived  and  climbed 
into  the  railroad  car.  They  listened,  ex- 
pressionless, as  General  Wilhelm  Keitel 
began  reading  the  terms  of  the  armistice. 

The  actual  signing  of  the  armistice 
was  to  take  place  the  following  day,  but 
at  breakfast  Shirer  learned  that  Hitler 
had  ordered  all  correspondents,  foreign 
and  German,  to  be  flown  back  to 
Berlin.  Nuts  to  that,  Shirer  thought.  He 
would  damned  well  stay  and,  if  possible, 
broadcast  from  Compiegne. 

Minutes  after  the  armistice  was  signed, 
Shirer  sat  in  front  of  a  microphone  next 
to  the  German  communications  van 
and  repeated  over  and  over,  "William 
L.  Shirer  calling  CBS  and  NBC  in  New 
York,  calling  CBS  and  NBC  from 
Compiegne,  France."  Shirer's  army 
source  had  asked  him  to  broadcast  to 
both  networks,  and  he  agreed,  even 
though  he  was  sure  his  effort  was  futile. 
He  went  ahead  anyway,  speaking  for  al- 


sound  of  people's  feet."  He  laid  his  mi- 
crophone on  the  steps  of  St.  Martin's-in- 
the-Fields  church,  picking  up  the  click- 
click  and  grind  of  heels  and  soles.  "One 
of  the  strangest  sounds  one  can  hear  in 
London  in  these  dark  nights,"  Murrow 
said,  "is  the  sound  of  footsteps  along  the 
street,  like  ghosts  shod  with  steel  shoes." 

Listening  to  Murrow's  reports  was  like 
hearing  an  old  friend  describe  the  threat- 
ened destruction  of  other  friends  and 
their  entire  world.  Murrow's  listeners 
trusted  him.  If  he  implied,  as  he  did  more 
and  more  often,  that  England  couldn't 
go  it  alone,  that  America  would  have  to 
join  the  fight,  maybe  he  was  right. 

Murrow  became  the  most  sought- 
after  American  in  London.  He  dined  with 
the  Churchills,  was  courted  by  society 
hostesses,  was  invited  to  country-house 
parties  by  aristocrats.  The  apartment  he 
and  Janet  maintained  at  84  Hallam 
Street  became  a  gathering  place  for  gen- 
erals, dukes,  members  of  Parliament, 
and  Cabinet  officials. 

A  month  after  the  Blitz  began,  Eric 


CARRY  ON  WITH  BROADCASTS  EVEN  1 
ONLY  READING  OFFICIAL  STATEMENT 
AND  NEWSPAPER  TEXTS. 

The  hell  with  that,  Shirer  thought.  H* 
advised  New  York  that  a  friendly  Get 
man  official  had  told  him  the  Nazis  wer 
building  an  espionage  case  against  hirr 
For  this  reason,  if  no  other,  he  had  h 
leave.  Joseph  Harsch,  who  reported  fror 
Berlin  for  Tlie  Christian  Science  Monito 
and  who  was  a  friend  of  Shirer's,  doubi 
ed  that  the  Germans  were  preparing  an 
trumped-up  spy  charges.  "I  don't  believ 
he  was  ever  in  any  danger,"  Harsch  said 

One  reason  Shirer  wanted  to  retur; 
was  to  publish  his  diary.  He  had  wii 
nessed  Hitler's  rise  and  had  recorded  i 
his  diary  what  he  saw,  heard,  thought 
and  believed,  censoring  nothing.  If  eve 
there  was  a  time  to  share  his  musing 
with  the  world— and  to  do  it  profitably- 
now  was  that  time.  Besides,  his  wif 
and  daughter  had  already  returned  t 
the  States.  He  went  directly  to  Bill  Pale; 
who  agreed  to  an  unpaid  three-mont 
leave.    Smuggling    the    diaries    pas 


Murrow  began  a  passionate  affair  with  Pamela  Churchill  (later  Pamela  Harriman),  the  beautii 


daughter-in-law  of  the  prime  minister.  "She  just  bowled  him  over"  said  Charles  Collingwoo 


i 


« 


most  30  minutes,  outlining  in  precise 
and  painful  detail  Hitler's  humiliation 
of  the  French. 

Shirer's  report  turned  out  to  be  the 
biggest  story  of  his  career.  The  next 
morning  he  learned  that  a  technician  in 
Berlin  had  thrown  the  wrong  switch  and 
sent  his  broadcast  directly  to  CBS.  He 
had  beaten  everyone,  including  the  Ger- 
mans, to  the  story  by  nearly  six  hours. 

The  London  Blitz,  which  began  in 
September  1940,  was  in  a  sense  what 
Edward  R.  Murrow  had  been  prepar- 
ing for  since  he  arrived  in  Europe  in 
1937.  It  had  immediacy,  human  drama, 
and  .sound  sirens,  bombs  falling,  anti- 
aircraft guns.  Murrow  had  been  arguing 
that  the  future  of  radio  news  lay  in  on- 
the-scene  reporting.  He  and  Larry 
LeSueur  and  Eric  Sevareid,  who  had 
joined  him  in  London,  were  ideally  posi- 
tioned to  prove  his  point. 

In  a  program  called  London  After 
Dark,  Murrow,  LeSueur,  and  Sevareid 
reported  on  the  nighttime  sights  and 
sounds  of  the  city.  In  Trafalgar  Square, 
Murrow  kept  silent  for  a  moment,  letting 
his  audience  listen  to  the  air-raid  siren  in 
the  background.  Then  he  said,  "I'll  just 
ooze  down  in  the  darkness  alongside 
these  steps  and  see  if  I  can  pick  up  the 

104 


Sevareid  decided  to  return  home.  He 
was  sick  and  exhausted,  and  he  hadn't 
seen  his  wife  -and  twins,  born  in  Paris 
before  it  fell,  in  four  months.  His  final 
broadcast  from  London  was  one  of  the 
greatest  of  his  career: 

London  may  not  be  England,  but  she  is 
Britain  and  she  is  the  incubator  of  Ameri- 
ca and  the  West.  Should  she  collapse,  the 
explosion  in  history  would  never  stop  its 
echoing.  Someone  wrote  the  other  day, 
"When  this  is  all  over,  in  years  to  come, 
men  will  speak  of  this  war  and  say,  i  was 
a  soldier,'  'I  was  a  sailor,'  or  "I  was  a  pi- 
lot.' Others  will  say  with  equal  pride,  'I 
was  a  citizen  of  London.'" 

Bill  Shirer  was  also  going  home.  The 
Nazis  had  begun  to  find  censors  who 
understood  the  nuances  of  American 
speech  that  Shirer  had  used  to  such 
good  effect.  More  and  more,  they  were 
shredding  his  scripts  until  they  made  no 
sense  at  all.  He  could  no  longer  use  the 
words  "Nazi"  or  "invasion"  on  the  air. 
He  couldn't  call  Germany  "aggressive" 
or  "militaristic"  or  anything  else  that 
might  create  an  unfavorable  impression 
in  neutral  America.  When  Shirer  com- 
plained about  the  censorship  to  Paul 
White,    White    cabled    back:    bill    we 

THOROUGHLY  UNDERSTAND,  SYMPATHIZE 
CONDITION  IN  BERLIN  BUT  FEEL  WE  MUST 


Gestapo  officials  at  the  airport,  Shire 
left  Berlin  on  December  5,  1940. 

He  arrived  in  New  York  to  full-coun 
press  publicity  treatment.  SHIRER  BACK 
from  Berlin,  said  the  headline  in  TH 
New  York  Times.  Shirer  gloried  in  the  ai 
claim  and  quickly  began  to  doubt  the  wis 
dom  of  returning  to  Berlin.  So  what  if  P;l 
ley  and  White  were  pressuring  him?  HI 
didn't  have  time  to  worry  about  that  nov 
not  with  every  book  editor  in  New  Yor 
clamoring  to  publish  his  Berlin  Diary  an^ 
every  magazine  editor,  from  Time's  Heu 
ry  Luce  to  the  Reader's  Digest's  DeWi< 
Wallace,  wanting  articles  from  him.  I 
the  end,  Shirer  gave  the  book  to  Blanch 
Knopf,  the  wife  and  partner  of  Alfre 
Knopf,  who  paid  a  $10,000  advance  fc 
it,  an  impressive  figure  at  the  time. 

Berlin  Diary,  which  the  Book-of-tht 
Month  Club  chose  as  its  July  1941  mai 
selection,  was  an  immediate  commerci; 
and  critical  success.  Within  weeks 
was  at  the  top  of  the  best-seller  lisl 
and  eventually  sold  more  than  500,00 
copies.  With  the  book's  triumph,  CB 
finally  agreed  that  Shirer  could  remai 
in  the  United  States.  Paul  White  wer 
up  to  Cape  Cod,  where  the  Shirei 
were  vacationing  that  summer,  and  o 
fered  a  new  contract,  including  an  ii 
crease   in   Shirer's  already  substanti; 

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Mrilia 


salary  and  a  Sunday  show  of  his  own. 

Before  leaving  Europe,  Shirer  had 
promised  Murrow  he  would  go  to  Lon- 
don in  the  fall  of  1941  to  pinch-hit  while 
Murrow  took  home  leave.  He  stressed  in 
a  letter  that  spring  that  he  would  return 
only  for  the  time  Murrow  was  away.  In 
the  end  Shirer  reneged  on  even  a  tempo- 
rary return  to  London.  Things  were  go- 
ing too  well  for  him  in  New  York.  Shirer 
had  been  all  but  flat  broke  when  Mur- 
row hired  him  in  1937.  Now  he  had 
money  and  the  perquisites  of  fame:  invi- 
tations to  lecture  and  to  join  New  York's 
exclusive  Century  Association  and  the 
Council  on  Foreign  Relations. 
He  even  went  to  Hollywood 
as  a  consultant  for  a  movie 
called  Passage  from  Bordeaux. 

The  principal  victim  of  Shi- 
rer's  egomania  was  his  wife, 
Tess.  Just  when  it  seemed  that 
she  and  Bill  could  have  a  nor- 
mal life,  the  marriage  was 
confronted  with  a  new  chal- 
lenge: Tilly  Losch.  When  Shi- 
rer was  in  his  mid-20s,  he  had 
seen  the  dancer  in  a  Noel 
Coward  musical  and  had  been 
smitten.  More  than  a  decade 
later,  Shirer  was  in  his  office 
in  New  York  one  day  when 
his  old  friend  John  Gunther 
stopped  by.  With  Gunther 
were  movie  directors  Frank 
Capra  and  Anatole  Litvak 
and  Tilly  Losch.  At  '21'  that 
night.  Shirer  and  Losch  be- 
came engrossed  in  each  other. 
"I  felt  myself  falling  in  love 
with  her,"  he  wrote  years  lat- 
er. Soon,  his  wife  and  his  new 
mistress  would  each  be  plead- 
ing with  him  to  give  up  the 
other.  He  refused. 


were  our  dead  .  .  .  were  mankind's  dead." 
Among  the  notables  on  the  dais  with 
Murrow  were  Bill  Paley,  Paul  White, 
and  the  network's  other  top  news  at- 
traction. Bill  Shirer.  Murrow  and  Shirer 
had  been  so  close  once,  but  now  there 
were  strains  in  the  relationship.  Murrow 
resented  Shirer's  reneging  on  his 
promise  to  sit  in  for  him  in  London.  He 
disapproved  of  the  way  Shirer  was  prof- 
iting from  his  war  experiences  with  his 
book  and  lecture  tours.  (The  money 
Murrow  made  from  his  lecture  tour  that 
year  went  to  charity.) 

Ed  and  Janet  Murrow  were  invited  to 


Edward  Murrow,  his  role  greatly  diminished  at  CBS-TV 
by  1960,  reports  local  results  in  that  year's  election. 


Ed  Murrow  was  now  taking  his  turn 
on  the  celebrity  whirl,  having  re- 
turned to  the  States  for  an  eight- 
month  break  in  November  1941.  He  was 
to  do  a  national  tour,  then  rest.  At  a 
banquet  hosted  by  CBS  at  the  Waldorf- 
Astoria,  poet  Archibald  MacLeish  paid 
eloquent  tribute  to  the  things  Murrow 
had  already  accomplished  in  his  war  re- 
porting: "You  burned  the  city  of  London 
in  our  houses  and  we  felt  the  flames  that 
burned  it.  You  laid  the  dead  of  London 
at  our  doors  and  we  knew  that  the  dead 


75  percent  of  the  American  warplanes  itl 
the  Pearl  Harbor  area  destroyed  on  thij 
ground,  thousands  killed  or  wounded! 
That  the  president  would  confide  all  thi 
to  Ed  Murrow  alone  was  a  remarkabll 
indication  of  the  great  distance  Murrovj 
and  CBS  had  traveled  in  four  years. 

Before  D-day,  there  was  a  lot  of  poll 
er  and  partying  in  London,  wherj 
conventional  morality  had  in  man 
circles  been  laid  to  rest  for  the  durn 
tion.  The  fever  infected  even  Ed  Mui 
row,   who   began   a   passionate   affail 
with  Pamela  Churchill  (later  Pamell 
Harriman),      the     beautifil 
daughter-in-law  of  the  prim] 
minister.     Estranged     froil 
Winston     Churchill's     soil 
Randolph,    the    bright    anil 
charming  Pamela  was  know] 
for    her    sparkling    dinneil 
and  soirees.  "She  just  bowlej 
him     over,"     said     Charl<| 
Collingwood. 

Murrow  even  considered  (J 
vorcing  Janet,  but  in  the  erj 
he  could  not  bring  himself 
do  it.  His  decision  probabj 
stemmed  from  guilt  and  \\ 
love  for  Janet,  who,  after 
years  of  marriage,  gave  birij 
to  their  son,  Charles  Casey. 

The  Murrow  Boys  who  w&j 
still  with  CBS  when  the  wi 
ended— Eric  Sevareid,  Lanl 
LeSueur,  Charles  Collingwoc| 
Winston  Burdett,  Howard 
Smith,  Bill  Downs,  Richard 
Hottelet,  and  William  Shire 
had  achieved  a  status  beyoj 
what  any  of  them  could  he 
imagined.  They  were,  said  p\\ 
lisher    Michael    Bessie,    w 


knew  them  well, 

"the  cla 

^fTl^f^ 

TTT 

ZtriTi^.yffT 

have  dinner  with  the  Roosevelts  at  the 
White  House  on  December  7.  After  the 
news  of  the  Japanese  attack  on  Pearl 
Harbor,  Mrs.  Roosevelt  called  to  say  the 
invitation  still  stood.  The  president  did 
not  dine  with  them,  but  the  First  Lady 
said  her  husband  wanted  Murrow  to  re- 
main afterward.  A  few  minutes  past  mid- 
night, Murrow  was  ushered  into  the 
Oval  Office,  where  Roosevelt  soberly 
sketched  for  him  the  magnitude  of  the 
disaster:  the  Pacific  fleet  badly  crippled, 


of  American  journalism— "golden  boys! 
Murrow,  for  professional  and  perso  I 
reasons,  wanted  to  keep  the  group  [ 
gether  under  the  CBS  umbrella,  or,  m 
accurately,  under  his  umbrella.  He  gaii 
the  power  to  do  so  by  moving  from  L 
don  to  New  York  in  1946  and  accept  I 
a  job  that  Paley  had  been  urging  on  1 1 
since  before  the  war  ended:  vice  prf 
dent  and  director  of  public  affairs.  In 
feet,  Murrow  would  be  in  charge  of  C I 
News,  which  had  only  just  become  a  : 


106 


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will  be  made  this  way. 


I'll! 


arate  division.  He  would  outrank  news 
director  Paul  White  and  have  direct  con- 
trol over  the  Boys'  destinies. 

Initially,  Murrow  had  wanted  Bill 
Shirer  to  replace  him  in  London  as  chief 
European  correspondent.  But  Shirer  re- 
fused. He  was  now  one  of  New  York's 
most  noted  and  best-paid  journalists.  He 
and  Tess  were  fixtures  on  the  New  York 
social  circuit.  And  Shirer's  affair  with 
Tilly  Losch  continued  unabated.  Some- 
times the  Shirers  got  together  with  Ed 
and  Janet  for  old  times'  sake,  but  the 
spark  just  wasn't  there  anymore. 

On  March  10,  1947,  Shirer's  lovely 
world  collapsed.  He  received  a  tele- 
phone call  from  an  executive  at  the 
J.  Walter  Thompson  advertising  agency, 
who  told  him  that  the  J.  B.  Williams 
Company,  the  large  soap  manufacturer. 


mentators,  attacked  the  plan.  The  gov- 
ernment in  Athens,  he  said,  was  the 
same  corrupt,  repressive  oligarchy  that 
had  ruled  Greece  before  the  Germans 
occupied  it  in  1941. 

Shirer's  criticisms  of  the  Greek  gov- 
ernment (and  of  Chiang  Kai-shek's  re- 
gime in  China)  drew  increasing  fire  from 
the  right.  That  must  be  why  I  am  being 
dropped,  Shirer  thought.  But  he  was 
sure  Murrow  and  Paley  would  never 
stand  for  it.  They  would  find  Shirer  an- 
other sponsor  and  keep  him  in  the  same 
Sunday  slot.  Shirer  phoned  Murrow. 
Was  the  program  his  or  the  sponsor's? 
After  saying  he'd  get  back  to  him,  Mur- 
row went  to  Paley.  He  reminded  the 
chairman  of  the  huge  contribution  Shirer 
had  made  to  CBS,  and  argued  that  he 
should  keep  the  program  and  the  time. 


he  had  the  right  to  tell  his  listeners  that 
he  was  being  taken  off  the  air.  The  two! 
men  agreed  on  a  vague  statement,  which 
Shirer  delivered  on  March  23.  When'l 
Shirer  emerged  from  the  studio  after  the  j 
broadcast,  several  reporters  were  waiting 
to  question  him  about  what  was  going 
on.  He  was  being  throttled  by  his  spon- 
sor, he  said.  But  that  was  hardly  the 
worst  of  it:  CBS,  by  forcing  him  to  give 
up  his  regular  broadcast  time,  was  mak- 
ing it  easy  for  the  sponsor.  In  effect  the 
network  was  endorsing  the  authority  c4 
Williams— or  any  other  sponsor— to  dio 
tate  the  content  of  news  broadcasts. 

Among  the  protesting  telegrams  tha 
Murrow   and    Paley   received   was   one 
signed  by  Dorothy  Parker,  Arthur  Millei 
Gregory    Peck,   and— most   painful    fo  ] 
Murrow— several  of  his  own 


\ 


i\ 


after  almost  three  years 
of  sponsorship,  had  de- 
cided to  drop  his  Sun- 
day broadcast.  Shirer 
was  stunned.  His  weekly 
5:45  p.m.  program  had 
not  long  before  received 
a  6.9  Hooper  rating,  the 
highest  of  any  Sunday 
news  program.  (More 
recently,  though,  the  rat- 
ings, like  news  ratings 
generally,  had  been  slip- 
ping.) Moreover,  Shirer 
insisted  later,  no  one  at 
Williams  or  CBS  had 
expressed  any  dissatis- 
faction with  his  perfor- 
mance. Shirer  immedi- 
ately suspected  that  he 
was  being  punished  for  the  outspoken, 
liberal  positions  he  took  on  the  air. 

It  was  not  an  illogical  assumption.  As 
relations  between  the  United  States  and 
the  Soviet  Union  started  to  decline  al- 
most immediately  after  the  war,  Ameri- 
can liberals  were  more  and  more  on  the 
run.  To  conservative  watchdogs,  liberals 
had  become  "fellow  travelers,"  "pinkos," 
"Reds,"  or  "Commies." 

When  President  Truman  declared 
what  became  known  as  the  Truman 
Doctrine  and  asked  Congress  for  $400 
million  in  aid  for  the  governments  of 
Greece  and  Turkey  to  help  them  resist 
Communist-backed  guerrilla  insurgen- 
cies, Shirer,  among  other  liberal  com- 

108 


fa 


■ 


Ed  Murrow,  left,  with  Charles  Collingwood  and  Eric  Sevareid, 

two  of  the  stars  of  his  team,  works  on  the  state  governors'  elections  in  1950. 


But  Shirer  had  crossed  the  chairman 
of  CBS  before,  and  now  Paley  saw  his 
chance  to  get  even.  Murrow,  who  had 
had  plenty  of  experience  of  his  own  with 
Shirer's  arrogance,  and  who  felt  that 
Shirer  had  grown  lazy  in  his  reporting, 
went  along  with  the  boss.  Finally  he 
picked  up  the  phone  and  called  Shirer's 
office.  Sponsor  or  no  sponsor,  Shirer  was 
to  be  replaced  on  the  Sunday  program 
by  another  commentator.  CBS  would  try 
to  find  him  a  new  time  slot  and,  eventu- 
ally, a  new  sponsor.  Until  then  he  would 
be  "sustaining"— that  is,  unsponsored. 

As  it  became  clear  to  Shirer  that  he 
had  lost  the  battle,  his  anger  increased. 
At  the  very  least,  he  insisted  to  Murrow, 


good  friends,  includinr 
John  Gunther  and  Vin 
cent  Sheean.  There  wer;1 
even  direct  attacks  o 
Murrow  from  others  hi 
respected.  Now  that  hi 
was  a  CBS  vice  pres. 
dent,  they  suggested,  r 
had  turned  into  just  aid 
other  corporate  hack. 

Murrow  asked  Josepi 
Harsch  to  take  over  Sh 
rer's   Sunday   progran 
Harsch,  who  had  a  daii 
news-and-analysis    pru 
gram  on  CBS  at  11: 
p.m.,  was  as  outspoke i 
ly  liberal  as  Shirer, 
fact      Murrow     hopr 
would  help  quell  the  ( 
calating  controversy, 
announcing   the   shift   from   Shirer 
Harsch,  Murrow  said,  "We  believe  thl 
Mr.  Harsch,  with  his  long  experience . 
Washington  and  abroad,  and  his  acce 
to  news  sources  in  Washington,  will  i: 
prove  Columbia's  news  analysis  in  tl 
period."  The  statement  was  salt  in  S 
rer's  wounds,  as   Murrow  must  ha 
known  it  would  be. 

Murrow  made  one  last  try  at  patchi 
things  up.  On  March  28,  he  and  Shii 
met  in  the  bar  at  the  Berkshire  Hot 
near  CBS  headquarters,  and  agreed  tr 
had  been  acting  like  idiots.  Over  a  ct 
pie  of  drinks  they  worked  out  a  comp 
mise  in  which  Shirer  would  be  giver 
new,  sponsored  time  slot  on  Saturc 

VANITY  FAIR /MAY  1 


vening.  In  return  the  protests  against  the 
etwork  would  end.  Exhilarated,  they 
repared  a  statement  for  the  press.  All 
ley  had  to  do  was  run  it  by  Bill  Paley. 

But  when  Murrow  and  Shirer  pre- 
bnted  the  compromise  to  Paley  in  his 
ffice,  he  rejected  it  out  of  hand.  He 
j/as  mortified  by  the  onslaught  of  criti- 
cism against  his  network  and  was  cer- 
jiin  Shirer  had  engineered  it.  "As  far  as 
I'm  concerned,"  Paley  told  Shirer,  "your 
jsefulness  to  CBS  has  ended." 
;  There  was  stunned  silence.  According 
b  Shirer,  all  Murrow  could  say  was  "We 
J  ad  an  agreement.  But  if  you  don't  like 
,  Bill,  you're  the  boss."  At  that  moment 
tie  Murrow-Shirer  friendship  ended. 

After  Shirer  left  CBS,  he  did  a  weekly 
5-minute  news-and-comment  program 
:>r  Mutual  until  1949,  but  he  never  again 
ound  a  full-time  job  in  broadcasting.  In 
950  he  was  listed  in  Red  Channels,  the 
nti-Communist  blacklisting  bible  of 
roadcasting,  as  a  Communist  sympathiz- 
r.  With  that  he  became  unemployable. 

Early  on  in  this  troubled  time,  Shirer 
egan  work  on  a  monumental  history  of 
Jazi  Germany.  In  1960,  The  Rise  and 
(all  of  the  Third  Reich  was  published  by 
cimon  &  Schuster.  It  became  a  phenom- 
nal  best-seller— more  than  two  million 


copies  sold  by  the  Book-of-the-Month 
Club  alone.  It  also  won  the  National 
Book  Award,  and  suddenly  money, 
fame,  and  prestige,  which  meant  so 
much  to  Shirer,  were  restored  to  him. 


1 


wish  goddamned  television  had  never 
been  invented,"  Murrow  grumbled.  But 
nothing,  certainly  not  Murrow's  grum- 
bling, could  stop  it.  People  were  buying 
television  sets  as  fast  as  they  could  be 
built.  In  1946  there  were  6,000  sets  in  the 
entire  United  States.  The  next  year  there 
were  190,000,  and  by  1949  one  million. 
By  1951  there  were  10  million  and  count- 
ing. And  the  three  TV  networks— CBS, 
NBC,  and  the  ill-fated  DuMont  (ABC 
didn't  move  into  national  TV  until 
1954)— seemed  to  be  creating  new  enter- 
tainment programming  as  fast  as  the 
manufacturers  were  turning  out  sets.  On 
June  8,  1948,  The  Texaco  Star  Theater, 
featuring  Milton  Berle,  was  launched, 
quickly  followed  by  Ed  Sullivan's  Toast 
of  the  Town,  Arthur  Godfrey's  Talent 
Scouts,  and,  in  1950,  Your  Show  of 
Shows,  with  Sid  Caesar  and  Imogene 
Coca.  Ed  Murrow  and  the  Boys,  grum- 
bling all  the  way,  were  forced  to  come  to 
terms  with  television. 

"This  is  an  old  team  trying  to  learn  a 


new  trade,"  Murrow  said  into  the  cam- 
era on  November  18,  1951,  squinting 
through  his  own  cigarette  smoke,  as  he 
began  the  premiere  broadcast  of  See  It 
Now,  the  first  documentary  series  in  tele- 
vision history.  "My  purpose,"  he  contin- 
ued, "will  be  ...  to  lean  over  the  cam- 
eraman's shoulder  occasionally  and  say 
a  word  which  may  help  illuminate  and 
explain  what  is  happening." 

He  switched  to  a  report  from  Eric 
Sevareid  in  Washington  on  Korean  War 
casualties.  From  Paris,  Howard  Smith 
described  the  latest  nuclear-disarmament 
proposals.  Done  in  a  "magazine"  format 
now  familiar  to  television  viewers  but 
new  at  the  time,  the  first  See  It  Now  put 
everyone  on  notice  that  the  series  would 
not  dabble  in  the  mindless  trivia  of  what 
then  passed  for  television  news.  "Televi- 
sion was  never  the  same  after  the  first 
See  It  Now,"  said  Don  Hewitt,  who  di- 
rected the  premiere  program  and  who,  a 
couple  of  decades  later,  borrowed  bits 
of  the  format  to  create  60  Minutes.  "Ed 
Murrow  made  television  respectable." 

The  truth  was,  however,  that  Paley 
had  never  felt  as  strongly  about  Murrow 
and  the  Boys,  or  their  calling,  as  they 
had  imagined.  By  the  mid-50s,  Paley's 
priorities  were  clear.   Television   news 


IE  ARMCHAIR  TRAVELER'S  DELIGHT: 

ijoy  a  bit  of  old  England  and  a  taste  of  France, 

these  marvelous  books  from  two  favorite  writers. 


H  ^  f"w** 


ifaA*" 


iallantine  Books 


"'Beguiling  and  delectable." — Mimi  Sheraton 


"Delightful 


jANITY  FAIR  /MAY  1996 

1 


won 


programs  were  generally  relegated  to 
late  night  and  the  Sunday-afternoon 
"cultural  ghetto."  See  It  Now  was  one 
of  the  victims  of  Paley's  new  priorities. 
In  1955  the  program  lost  its  sponsor 
and  its  scheduled  weekly  slot.  From 
then  on  it  appeared  fewer  than  10 
times  a  year— "See  It  Now  and  Then," 
wags  called  it.  Content  wasn't  the  prob- 
lem so  much  as  revenue.  Far  more 
money  could  be  made  with  such  pro- 
grams as  /  Love  Lucy,  The  Ed  Sullivan 
Show,  and  Gunsmoke.  Even  better,  for 
a  while,  were  the  high-powered,  big- 
buck  quiz  shows  such  as  CBS's  $64,000 
Question  and  NBC's  Twenty-One. 

After  Sig  Mickelson  took  over 
the  combined  television  and  radio  news 
operations  at  CBS  in  1954  and  sub- 
sumed Ed  Murrow's 
proudly  independent 
fiefdom,  Murrow  seemed 
lost.  He  still  had  Person 
to  Person,  his  lighter- 
than-air,  split-screen 
celebrity-interview  show, 
and  his  nightly  radio 
broadcast.  But  he  was 
beginning  to  think  he 
might  be  finished  at 
CBS. 

When  Murrow  learned 
that  Tlw  $64,000  Ques- 
tion and  other  quiz 
shows  had  been  rigged 
by  their  producers,  he 
found  it  just  too  much 
to  take.  In  October  1958 
he  lashed  out  at  his 
own  bosses  in  a  scorch- 
ing speech  to  the  Radio 
and  Television  News 
Directors  Association  in 
Chicago.  He  denounced 


not  be  dumped  as  Shirer  had  been,  but 
he  would  soon  know  what  it  felt  like  to 
be  a  pariah.  On  the  night  of  the  1958 
elections,  instead  of  doing  commentary, 
Murrow  was  put  in  charge  of  the  east- 
ern states'  returns,  chalking  up  the  latest 
numbers  on  a  blackboard  and  reporting 
them  to  anchor  Walter  Cronkite.  He  ac- 
cepted the  assignment  without  protest, 
but,  said  Howard  Smith,  "he  had  been 
number  one  for  so  long  that  that  was 
quite  a  blow." 

In  January  1961  the  great  Edward  R. 
Murrow-CBS  epic  ended.  Murrow 
accepted  an  offer  from  newly  elected 
president  John  Kennedy  to  become  di- 
rector of  the  United  States  Information 
Agency— "a  beautiful  and  timely  gift," 
said  Janet  Murrow. 


Edward  Murrow  with  his  ever  present  cigarette 

in  a  formal  portrait  taken  shortly  before  he  left  CBS  in  1961 

to  become  director  of  the  United  States  Information  Agency. 


all  along  to  repair  their  shattered  frienj 
ship.  Janet  Murrow  called  Tess  Shir  [ 
one  day  and  invited  them  to  lunch.  Tel 
said  she  would  do  her  best  to  persua 
Bill,  and  Shirer  grudgingly  agreed  to  gl 
Over  lunch  the  two  couples  laugh 
and  reminisced  about  the  years  before  t 
war  when  two  young  men,  best  friend 
traipsed  about  Europe  and  did  things  l 
one  thought  could  be  done.  Then  Mil 
row,  impossibly  emaciated,  asked  Shir  j 
to  ride  around  the  farm  with  him  in  i|) 
Jeep.  Shirer  did  not  want  to  be  alone 
Murrow  and  protested  he  didn't  think ! 
was  up  to  the  drive.  Murrow  insisted. 
Twice  in  the  circuit  around  the  fa 
Murrow  tried  to  turn  the  conversat 
to  the  hows  and  whys  of  Shirer's  dep; 
ture  from  CBS.  Both  times  Shirer 
him   off  and    chang 
the    subject.    Murrol 
defeated,  fell  silent.  I 
started    the    Jeep    aj 
drove     back     to    t 
house.  Everyone  chattJ 
amiably  enough  ovew 
civilized    pot    of    tt| 
Then  the  Shirers  rose* 
leave,  and  the  Murro'i 
walked    them    out 
their  car  and   thankil 
them  for  coming.  It  h 
been,  Murrow  said  w> 
a   weak   smile,    "muH 
too  long  a  time." 

After  Shirer's  mil 
riage  to  Tess  enchj 
in  divorce  in  19? 
he  married  two  mo 
times.  In  late  \9lA 
when  he  was  almost 
and  had  only  a  fi| 
more  months  to  live,. 


recent  cutbacks  at  CBS  News  and  said 
the  hunger  for  profits  of  network  execu- 
tives had  turned  television  into  little 
more  than  a  medium  of  "decadence,  es- 
capism, and  insulation."  "This  instru- 
ment can  teach,"  he  declared.  "It  can  il- 
luminate. Yes,  and  it  can  even  inspire. 
But  it  can  do  so  only  to  the  extent  that 
humans  are  determined  to  use  it  to 
those  ends.  Otherwise,  it  is  merely 
wires  and  lights  in  a  box." 

Paley  was  livid.  Murrow  had  embar- 
rassed the  chairman  in  public,  just  as 
Shirer  had  done  in  1947.  Murrow  would 


still 

had 

not 

forgott'B 

^ir^n?  - 

^^^Tj^TT  c_ 

Four  years  later,  Edward  R.  Murrow 
was  dying  of  cancer  at  the  age  of  57. 
His  left  lung  had  been  removed  in  Oc- 
tober 1963,  and  a  few  months  after  that 
he  had  stepped  down  as  U.S.I.A.  director. 
He  tried  recuperating  in  California,  then 
returned  east  to  friends  and  his  beloved 
farm  in  Pawling,  New  York.  But  the  can- 
cer soon  metastasized  to  his  brain,  and  he 
had  to  undergo  surgery  again.  During  his 
long  illness,  the  Boys  would  visit. 

Murrow  and  Shirer  had  barely  spoken 
since  1947.  Murrow,  however,  had  hoped 


or  forgiven  his  CBS  bosses.  "Ed  cast  i 
lot  with  Bill  Paley,  who  was  not  wort!  | 
hundredth  of  Ed  Murrow,"  he  said, 
remember  saying  to  Ed,  'You'll  get  ji  j 
what  I  got.'  And  he  did  in  the  end." 
why  didn't  Shirer  reconcile  with  M  | 
row  in  Pawling,  knowing  how  despen| 
Murrow  was  to  end  their  feud  before 
died?  "Ed  didn't  have  to  do  what  he  c  | 
to  his  best  friend.  I  just  didn't  want 
make  up  after  20  years.  I  may  ha  I 
been  wrong,"  he  said  softly,  "but  tha| 
the  way  I  felt  about  it."  □ 


112 


VANITY  FAIR /MAY: 


Mic 


KEY'S  RESERVED  SEATS. 


Stores  Everywhere. 


y 


V 


\ 


9'4  ;'*"^y''*A,\ 


he  gifted  cast  of  Rent,  the  electric  Off  Broadway  musi- 
cal about  young  artists  surviving  AIDS  in  New  York's 
Alphabet  City,  is  on  a  mission.  Fueled  by  celebrity-filled 
audiences,  the  move  to  Broadway,  and  a  rumored  Lloyd 
Webber  London  production,  their  crystalline  voices  are 
lifted  every  performance  in  homage  to  composer  Jona- 
than Larson,  who  died  of  an  aortic  aneurysm  at  age  35, 
hours  after  the  show's  final  dress  rehearsal  in  January. 


i.  ^»^_^   X  Tfci-^-m.^,'^..  .maj»*: 


1  ' 

■  f 

•     J",    '  ' 

.  U'. 

~^^- fcjii  *:.  -"<■■  r- 

.While  inspired  by  Puccini's  century-old  opera  La  Boheme,  cfnd 
compared  to  the  1 968  rock  opus  Hair,  Renf  is  much  more  exuber- 
ant. Even  at  the  memorial  for  Larson,  the  company— including 
DAPHNE  RUBIN-VEGA  and  ADAM  PASCAL,  who  play  ro- 
mantic ruffians  Mimi  and  Roger— couldn't  help  dancing  joyously. 
"Jonathan's  music  is  so  moving  that  we  had  to  get  up  and  perform 
the  way  he  wanted  it,"  says  Pascal.  The  celebration  continues  this 
month  at  the  Nederlander  Theatre.  -SUSAN  kittenplan 


Photograph  by  JESSE  FROHMAN 


Look,  lady: 


It's  not  my  dog. 


My  dog  stays  tied  up  all  day. 


Besides,  my  dog  treat  to  obedience  school. 


No  way  it's  my  dog. 


Lots  of  doss  ran  loose  in  this  neighborhood. 


I  guarantee  you  it's  not  my  dog. 


Dear  Neighbor: 


It's  your  dog. 


■ 


^  Polaroid  See  what  develops. 


©1996  Polaroid!  orpori n.  "Polaroid"* 


?:<ffftn 


■"-"-■ 


mmmm 


aiiities 


Hers  Seam 

Best  known  as  the  non-Brad  Pitt 
brother  in  A  River  Runs  Through  It, 
Craig  Sheffer  has  developed  a 
bit  of  an  identity  problem.  "Peo- 
ple certainly  respect  my  work," 
he  says,  "but  I  haven't  had  a  lot 
of  notoriety."  Still,  he's  notorious 
enough  to  have  become  one  of 
the  more  diverse  Hollywood  hy- 
phenates in  years.  Currently,  the 
36-year-old  producer-writer-artist 
is  completing  both  a  novel  about  his  Pennsylva- 
nia childhood  and  a  screenplay  about  actor- 
assassin  John  Wilkes  Booth,  whom  Sheffer  says 
was  "the  Brad  Pitt  of  his  day." 

This  summer,  Sheffer  will  be  seen  in  two  films — 
the  black  comedy  Head  Above  Water  and  the 
Tantrically  sexy  Bliss.  In  May,  he  stars  in  the  CBS 
mini-series  A  Season  in  Purgatory  (based  on 
Dominick  Dunne's  best-selling  novel),  which  has 
him  as  a  charismatic  congressman  with  a  dark 
secret.  "I  love  going  nonstop,"  Sheffer  says. 
"That's  what  I  do-create!"  -MICHAEL  MUSTO 


Clockwise  from  left: 
Wild  Flowers,  by  Snoirdon;* 
William  Kennedy 's 
The  Flaming  Corsage,  his 
latest  novel  set  in  Albany; 
Zelda  Fitzgerald 
at  Salies-de-Be'arn, 
January  1926. 


Everyone  knows  Zelda  Fitzgerald  was  F.  Scott's  wife  and  muse, 
who  swung  from  chandeliers  and  ended  up  in  an  asylum  (a  sort 
of  literary  Courtney  Love,  but  with  better  clothes  and  hygiene). 
What  you  might  not  know  is  that  Zelda  was  an  artiste  in  her 
own  right;  now  her  compelling  artwork,  diaries,  and  letters  have 
been  amassed  in  PETER  KURTH  and  JANE  LIVINGSTON'S  striking  and 
evocative  Zelda— An  Illustrated  Life  (Abrams). 

Also  this  month:  lensman  SNOWDON'S  Wild  Flowers  (Clarkson  Pot- 1 
ter)  is  posy  portraiture  at  its  most  sublime.  JANE  MENDELSOHN'S  nov-\) 
el,  /  Was  Amelia  Earhart  (Knopf),  imagines  the  life  of  the  patrorH 
saint  of  lost  luggage  if  she  had  miraculously  crash-landed  on  an  island 
Friendship  with  a  Caribbean  revolutionary's  daughter  results  in  a  trav 
el  writer's  imprisonment  in  MARY  MORRIS'S  House  Arrest  (Doubleday). 
PHILIP  NORMAN'S  Everyone's  Gone  to  the  Moon  (Random  House 
finds  an  aspiring  journalist  in  60s  London  ensnared  in  a  love  triangli 
with  his  mentor  and  a  young  vixen.  The  relationship  between  a  south- 
ern rock  'n'  roll  god  and  a  Waspy  lawyer  is  revealed  in  JAY  "Voice  of 
a  Generation"  MclNERNEY'S  new  novel,  The  Last  of  the  Savagest 
(Knopf).  THOMAS  HOVING'S  False  Impressions  (Simon  &  Schuster) 
takes  delight  in  exposing  the  most  scandalous  and  embarrassing  art 
fakes.  A  dramatic  1908  murder-suicide  is  the  catalyst  for  WILLIAM' 
KENNEDY'S  novel  The  Flaming  Corsage  (Viking),  set  in  Albany.  Then 
Killing  Fields  (Twin  Palms),  edited  by  CHRIS  RILEY  and  DOUG  NIVEN^ 
documents  the  living  images  of  100  people  executed  by  the  Khmer  Rouge. 
JACOB  WEISBERG  scolds  Democrats  and  calls  Newt  &  Co.  on  the  car- 
pet in  his  ///  Defense  of  Government  (Scribner).  Reporter  JUDITH  MILLER 
provides  an  insider's  take  on  the  struggle  for  Arab  peace  in  God  Has 
Ninety-Nine  Names  (Simon  &  Schuster).  Professional  gossip  and  literary 
debutant  WILLIAM  NORWICH  takes  a  curtsy  with  his  first  novel,  Learn- 
ing to  Drive  (Atlantic  Monthly  Press).  Two  dramatic  trials  are  the  subject 
of  dentistry-obsessed  A.  S.  BYATT'S  new  novel.  Babel  Tower  (Randorr 
House).  And,  finally,  our  own  GEORGE  WAYNE  bends  over  backwarc 
to  stoke  America's  hankering  for  hunks  in  Male  Supermodels:  Tht 
Men  of  Boss  Models  (D.A.P).  — elissa  schappeli 


VANITY  FAIR /MAY 


RARE... 

SOUGHT  AFTER... 

COVETED... 

FROM  A  WORLD  APART 


ELIZABETH   TAYLOR 

Black  Pearls 


ELIZABETH  TAYLOR 

Black  Pearls 


^ 


/ 


ELIZABETH  TAYLOR 

Black  Pearls 


ELIZABETH  TAYLOR 

Black  pearls 


^ 


1 

ELIEABtTH  T\no»J 

Black  Pearls 

^^H 

Pt«rL-MEOB*TH 
AND  NHOWLft  C[L 

CEL  PARFl'MF. 
POUR  It  SAIN 

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i     \ 

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fl         I 

■          1 

1       Pf      I  Ml  D    ■ 

1       RATH  AND    ■ 

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ft     i 

Ft  Li   1     :>M 

k 

Black  Pearls.  The  captivating  new  fragrance  from  Elizabeth  Taylor. 

A  modern  oriental,  rare,  sensuous,  profoundly  feminine  — 

a  fragrance  set  apart.  Just  as  the  beauty  of  a  single  pearl  is  like  no  other. 

so  is  the  woman  who  created  Black  Pearls.  Elizabeth  Taylor. 

THE  ELIZABETH  TAYLOR  BLACK  PEARLS  FRAGRANCE  COLLECTION 

Parfum.  25  fl.  oz..  70.00.    Eau  de  Parfum  Spray.  1.7  B.  oz..  57.50.    Eau  de  Parfum  Spray.  U  fl.  oz..  47.50. 

Perfumed  Body  Lotion.  6.8  fl.  oz..  30.00.    Perfumed  Bath  and  Shower  Gel.  6.8  fl.  oz..  25.00. 

All  prices  are  suggested  retail 


BLOOMINGDALES   THE  BON  MARCHE    BURDINES  GOLDSMITH'S 
LAZARUS    MACY'S    MACY'S/BULLOCK'S    RICH'S   STERN'S 


'anities 


Saint  H 


So  far  this  decade  Paul  Wester- 
berg  has  broken  up  his  band, 
ended  his  marriage,  quit  drink- 
ing, left  his  manager,  and  at 
tempted  to  get  out  of  his  record- 
ing deal.  "I  didn't  have  a  master 
plan,"  the  36-year-old  singer  de- 
clares. "Each  one  was  a  matter  of 
survival."  In  his  10  years  leading 
the  much-loved  Replacements, 
Westerberg  stacked  up  the  sorts  of 
accolades  associated  with  the  lives  of 
he  saints— and  the  record  sales  to  go  with  them. 
But  despite  ecstatic  reviews,  his  first  solo  album, 
I993's  14  Songs,  got  lost  amid  Warner  Music's  cor- 
Dorate  civil  war.  Westerberg's  poetic  soul  did  not 
;rowd  out  a  punk's  willingness  to  pick  a  fight  with 
he  big  boys,  but  the  label  refused  to  let  him  go 
ind  promised  to  make  it  up  to  him  next  time.  Well, 
lext  time  is  here.  Westerberg  has  recorded  a  colleo 
ion  of  thoughtful  songs  called  Eventually,  to  be  re- 
eased  this  month.  "I've  made  a  folk -pop  record.  I'm 
l/ery  comfortable  with  that,"  he  says.  "I'm  totally 
iware  that  people  are  going  to  say  it  isn't  as  raw  as  it 
lsed  to  be.  Well,  I'm  not  supposed  to  be.  I  would  be  embar- 
'assed."  The  length  of  the  stretch  limo  Warner  has  provided 
o  ferry  the  Minneapolis  native  around  New  York  suggests 
hat  this  CD  must  have  the  sort  of  promotion  budget  not  seen 


Musician  Paul  Westerberg's  latest 
recording  is  Eventually. 


since  Caesar  attempted  to  exercise  his  option  on  Cleopatra. 
"Now  that  I'm  settled  down  they  give  me  the  big  car,"  Wes- 
terberg says.  "Where  was  it  when  I  was  young  and  wild  and 
could  have  filled  it  with  floozies?"  —bill  Flanagan 


Rudolph  Giuliani, 

mayor  ofNeiv  York  City: 

he  Good  Life  and  Its  Discontents, 

by  Robert  J.  Samuelson 

(Times  Books). 

'It  is  an  excellent  analysis  of 

modern-day  America. " 


Nicole  Miller,  designer: 

Henry  James'  Midnight  Song, 

by  Carol  De  Chellis  Hill 

(Norton).  "Despite  its 

being  a  novel,  this  book  uses  real 

historical  figures.  It  is  a 

mystery  that  takes  place  at  the 

turn  of  the  century." 


Dr.  Isadore  Rosenfeld, 

physician,  author: 

Konin:  A  Quest,  by  Theo  Richmond 

(Pantheon).  "I'm  riveted  by 

Konin  —a  haunting  return  to  the 

generic  shtetl  of  my  forebears." 


Oliver  Stone,  director: 

Giants  and  Heroes:  A  Daughter's 
Memories  of  Y.  A.  Tittle, 

by  Dianne  Tittle  de  Laet  (Steerforth). 
"A  strangely  intimate  memoir  of  the  great 
quarterback,  about  a 
time  when  guys 
struggled  at  paying 
jobs  in  the  off- 
season and 
played  football 
for  the  sheer 
hell  of  it." 


JITY  FAIR /MAY  1996 


121 


4f  *»  °*»  mbp, 
l»&rfb  himself 

impunity. 


tetter- 


John*  Jinf 


o/t  of 


than  me?  I  mean  do  you  really  think  a  radical-looking,  earring-cl. 
►newashed  desert  boy  could  convince  women  they  need  at  least  |iree  glasses 
of  milk  a  day  to  meet  the  calcium  requirement?  I  don't  think  so. 


MILK 

What  a  surprise r 


X£SSO»  M0M0TON  SOA!>0 


£H  ....  .iLM.o ■  -^-TMB'if  iPiTnii 


THE    ARCHITECTURE    OF    A    BEAUTIFUL    BOE 


«#*** 


RALPH   LAUi 


MYFAIK 

MAY     1996 


HEART 

'Basketball  chose 
me,"  says 
Teresa  Edwards, 
the  only  U.S.  player 
to  have  participated 
in  three  successive 
Olympic  Games, 
"because  as  a 
child  it  was  the  one 
sport  in  which  I 
could  outperform 
the  boys." 


ANATOMY  OF  A 

CHAMPION 

What  does  it  take  to  win?  Heart,  desire,  discipline,  agility, 
speed,  strength— and  the  firm  conviction  that  "silver  sucks."  In  search 

of  the  Olympic  ideal,  DAVID  HALBERSTAM  profiles  two 
Atlanta  hopefuls  on  the  U.S.  fencing  team,  who  face  tougher  challenges 

than  most  American  athletes 


rhe  American  fencers  spent  three  days  living 
the  comparative  high  life  in  Madrid  after  com- 
peting in  La  Coruna,  on  the  western  coast  of 
Spain.  They  practiced  during  the  day  at  a  Madrid 
fencing  club,  and  they  lodged  in  two  rooms  at 
the  Hotel  Lisboa,  which  cost  them  $20  each  a 
:.  On  tour  they  sometimes  stayed  in  one  room— break- 
iown  hotel  beds  to  put  their  mattresses  on  the  floor 
a  necessary  skill  for  American  fencers.  But  at  the  Ho- 
isboa  they  had  their  own  bathrooms,  as  well  as  tele- 


phones and  television  sets,  so  it  was  a  considerable  bargain. 
With  a  World  Cup  event  coming  up  in  Venice,  they  had  to 
decide  whether  to  stay  on  in  Madrid  or  go  to  Rome. 

It  was  not  an  easy  call.  On  the  side  of  Madrid  was  the 
relative  luxury  of  the  Hotel  Lisboa  and  the  fact  that 
Madrid  was  significantly  cheaper  than  Rome.  In  Rome's 
favor  was  the  fact  that  Nick  Bravin  (on  the  cover  of  this 
magazine),  at  24  the  senior  member  of  the  team  as  well 
as  its  de  facto  travel  agent,  translator,  and  general  mentor, 
spoke  better  Italian  than  Spanish.  Also,  Bravin  believed 

125 


THE   NEW    WOMEN'S   FRAGRANCE   Al> 


RALPH  LAUREN 

ROLO  S     R     O     R     T 


RALPH  LAUREN  [ 

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MOISTURIZING  SPA  WASH 


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COOLESSENCE  BODY  SPRAY 


IN  FITNESS  LINE  BY  RALPH  LAUREN 


RALPH  LAUREN 


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LPH  LAUREN 

L    O  S     P    O    R  T 


RALPH  LAUREN 

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SCRUB 

FOAMING  SEA  SALTS 


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SCULPT 

DRY  OIL  BODY  SPRAY 


1-800B83-7440 

http://www.ralphlaurenfragrance.com 


that  the  younger  members  of  the  team,  who  did  not  know 
Rome  well,  would  benefit  by  wandering  through  the  streets 
of  one  of  the  great  cities  of  the  world. 

Rome  it  would  be.  The  next  morning  Bravin  went  to  a 
local  travel  agency,  where  he  found  that  it  would  cost  them 
some  $700  each  to  fly  to  Rome,  but  less  than  $200  each  to 
get  there  by  train  (second  class)— a  grim,  cramped,  exhaust- 
ing 23-hour  trip.  The  airfare  represented  a  good  deal  of  mon- 
ey for  the  team;  their  dilemma  was  of  the  kind  shared  by 
many  amateur  athletes  from  America  who,  while  represent- 
ing one  of  the  richest  countries  in  the  world,  play  sports  that 
do  not  televise  well  or  about 
which  the  American  pub- 
lic cares  little.  Bravin  was 
certainly  used  to  these  kinds 
of  problems  and  was  skill- 
ful at  getting  around  them; 
he  soon  found  just  what 
he  was  looking  for— a  leg 
of  a  Thai  Airways  flight 
that  would  take  them  from 
Madrid  to  Rome  for  about 
$100  a  person. 

At  the  Rome  airport 
Bravin  consulted  his  tat- 
tered notebook  containing 
a  list  of  the  cheapest  ho- 
tels in  the  world's  capitals 
and  started  calling  around. 
At  the  first  seven  places, 
he  struck  out,  but  at  the 
eighth,  the  Hotel  Contilia, 
he  found  one  room  still 
available,  at  $120,  or  $30  a 
head.  On  this  trip  there  were 
only  four  of  them,  rather 
than  the  usual  five,  since 
teammate  Peter  Devine  was 
sick  with  the  flu  and  had 
gone  ahead  to  Venice  to 
rest  for  the  World  Cup 
event  there.  They  played 
hearts  to  see  who  got  the 
worst  bed— the  one  they  jok- 
ingly called  "the  crippler." 


DESIRE 

Modern  pentathlete  Michael  Gostigian  won  an 

unprecedented  fourth  U.S.  national  championship  last  November, 

competing  in  horseback  riding,  swimming,  epee  fencing,  pistol 

shooting,  and  a  cross-country  run.  Eight  months  earlier  he  had  suffered 

a  partially  collapsed  lung  after  a  bad  fall. 


Fencers  are  marvelous  athletes,  smart  and  sur- 
prisingly strong,  with  great  footwork  and  great 
hand-to-eye  coordination.  The  three  events 
(and  their  weapons)  in  fencing  are  the  foil,  the 
epee,  and  the  saber.  Foil  fencing,  which  uses  a 
thin,  rectangular-shaped  blade,  is  athletically 
and  intellectually  demanding  because  it  has  the  smallest 
target  area— the  torso,  back,  and  groin.  Bravin,  in  addition 
to  being  a  world-class  poor  person's  travel  agent,  was  also 
a  star  of  the  individual  foil  in  America,  a  three-time  N.C.A.A. 
champion  as  a  Stanford  student,  and  a  three-time  nation- 
al champion.  He  had  been  the  first  American  in  years  to 
show  that  he  might  be  able  to  compete  at  fencing's  high- 

128 


est  level— against  the  mighty  Europeans,  who  domina 
sport  and  who  subsidize  it  handsomely.  According  tc| 
Borack,  a  former  Olympic  fencer  who  now  serves 
captain  of  the  American  team,  the  annual  American  I 
get  is  roughly  $400,000,  while  the  Italian  government! 
its  team  more  than  $6  million. 

Nevertheless,  Nick  Bravin  had  come  to  believe  th;| 
versity  had  its  own  rewards,  that  by  dint  of  being  f 
to  economize  he  knew  not  only  Europe's  castles  am 
seums  but  also  its  working-class  bars.  He  had  made  fi 
as  he  might  not  have  had  he  been  protected  by  weak 

celebrity  status.  Bdj 
all,  he  and  the  other 
ican  fencers  had  learol 
make  sacrifices  and  ti 
care  of  one  another  | 
had  learned  to  be 
mates  and  good  fr| 
even  as  they  had 
fierce  competitors. 

This  current  gro| 
Americans  in  the 
Bravin,  24,  Cliff  II 
18,  Peter  Devine,  191 
McClain,  20,  and  Zej 
Longenbach,  24— weJ 
prising ly  closely  mil 
in  skills  and  the  mcl 
ented  team  this  col 
had  produced  in 
thought  Bravin's  ok 
lege  coach,  Zoran  1 1 
Tulum,  originally  fro 
goslavia,    had   comj 
America  10  years  I 
and  developed  a  gruj 
admiration  for  the 
ness  of  American  ft  | 
whose  rewards  hadi 
completely  internaluj 
Among  the  teaml 
that  Nick  Bravin  was  [ 
ing  to  the  Hotel  C'i 
was  a  young  man  i| 
GifT  Bayer  (pictured  i 
the  Games  Begin 
As  a  high-school  senior,  he  had  burst  onto  the  n<i| 
scene  to  become  the  wunderkind  of  American  fe 
stunning  Bravin  in  particular  by  coming  from  beh. 
the   1995  national  championship  finals  and  beatimj 
When  Bravin  looked  at  Bayer  he  saw  nothing  less  th 
image  of  his  younger  self.  "Cliff  is  extremely  hungr 
like  I  used  to  be,"  he  said.  "He  has  a  lot  of  physica 
but  above  all  he  has  the  gift  of  attitude.  He  wants  t 
you  on  every  point,  and  he  is  afraid  of  no  one,  afn 
no  reputation." 

Bravin  himself  had  won  the  first  of  his  three  ni 
championships  in  1991  at  age  20.  In  the  words  of  Zor 
lum,  he  was  as  hungry  as  a  wolf  then,  as  audacious 


1 


Ta  ke    a    good    look 


Available    at    Sunglass    Hut 


PREDATOR'    METAL 


ORBS'"   ELLIPSE 


N  E  R  T  I  A'' 


DRIVEN  TO  BE  THE  BEST-INTRODUCING  BMW 


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•  Manufacturer's  suggested  retail  price  for  base  528i.  Dealer  price  may  vary.  Excludes  destination/handling  charges,  taxes,  license  and  options. 
For  more  information  call  1 -800-334-4BMW.  Internet  address  http://www.bmwusa.com    ©  1996  BMW  of  North  America,  Inc.  The  BMW  trademark  and  logo  are  registerec 


World  Class  Performers 

The  all-new  1997  5-Series 


With   a   passion   for   performance   spanning   seve ' 
decades,  it's  a  natural  match:   BMW  is  an  Officii 
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when  it  comes  to  driving  pleasure,  these  two  5's 
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DISCIPLINE 

Long  Island  native  Darrick  Heath  played  with  an  Austrian  handball  team  to  fine-tune  his  game. 
He  rejoined  his  U.S.  teammates  before  the  U.S.  Olympic  Festival  in  1995. 


was  fearless,  and  he  had  taken  particular  pleasure  in  knock- 
ing off  better-known  fencers.  By  1994  he  had  begun  to  beat 
some  of  the  best  fencers  in  the  world,  Elvis  Gregory  of  Cuba 
and  Dimitri  Chevtchenko  of  Russia  among  them.  There  was 
talk  that  he  might  become  one  of  the  giants  of  the  sport. 

Then,  to  Tulum's  dismay,  Bravin  entered  Colum- 
bia Law  School  and  lavished  the  singular  inten- 
sity he  had  previously  given  to  fencing  on  his 
studies.  By  March  of  this  Olympic  year  his 
ranking  had  fallen  to  No.  4,  just  behind  Bayer, 
Devine,  and  McClain.  Since  only  the  top  three 
will  make  the  Olympic  team,  decided  in  June  after  the 
national  championships,  Bravin  found  himself  in  a  tight 
spot.  He  was  certain  that  technically  he  was  a  better  fencer 
than  ever,  but  he  had  begun  to  wonder  whether  he  still  had 
the  hunger  that  Tulum  talked  about  so  often.  The  wolf, 
according  to  Tulum,  was  always  the  hunter.  It  sized  up  its 
prey  and  thought  of  nothing  else.  Hunting  was  a  matter  of 
life  and  death  to  the  wolf;  so  should  fencing  be  to  the  true 
champion.  Bravin  was  still  fast— Rapido,  his  Cuban  com- 
petitors had  nicknamed  him— but  fast  was  not  enough.  The 
antelope  is  fast,  but  you  cannot  fence  if  you  are  an  ante- 
lope, Tulum  would  say.  The  wolf  triumphs  because  it  thinks 
of  nothing  else,  it  is  always  the  hunter. 

As  a  fencer,  Bravin  knew  that  Tulum  was  right,  but  at 

132 


this  point  there  were  other  things  in  his  life.  He  founr 
had  other  athletes  before  him,  that  the  ascent  was  then 
part.  On  the  way  up  you  had  no  title  to  lose. 

He  had  been  drawn  to  the  sport  almost  by  chance . 
growing  up  in  Los  Angeles.  His  older  brother,  Jess- 
tried  fencing,  and  Nick,  who  was  then  about  12,  ti\ 
along.  He  immediately  decided  that  he  too  wanted  to' 
fencing  lessons.  Shawn  Bravin,  his  mother,  was  skef 
She  knew  her  youngest  child  was  bright  and  gifM 
many  things,  but  he  was  also  easily  bored.  She  had 
many  of  his  fads,  including  Bravin  piano  and  Bravii 
lin  lessons,  evaporate  overnight.  Yet  eventually  she  g. 
and  bought  him  all  the  requisite  gear. 

At  first  he  had  not  particularly  liked  fencing,  b 
stayed  with  it,  in  no  small  part,  he  decided  later,  to 
his  mother  wrong.  He  had  always  been  quick,  no  r 
what  sport  he  played,  and  almost  from  the  start  his  c 
es  saw  great  potential.  Soon,  with  their  encourageme 
began  going  more  than  once  a  week. 

It  was  not  the  dashing,  swashbuckling  swordpl; 
imagined  from  the  movies,  the  glorious  pleasure  of  st 
his  opponent  with  a  sword.  Rather,  it  was  technical  i 
ery,  footwork  drills,  using  muscles  in  his  arms  and  L 
ways  he  had  rarely  used  them  before.  But  after  six  rr 
or  so,  his  coaches  finally  let  him  compete,  and  he  kv 

He  won  his  first  four  tournaments.  At  the  start,  pe 


■»■. 


AGILITY 

Founding  member  of  the  Women's  Professional  Volleyball  Association  Karolyn  Kirby  has 
been  the  sport's  M.V.P.  four  times  during  the  past  six  seasons. 


'ed  competitions  too  much.  He  was  brash  and  impa- 
hotheaded  and  unwilling  to  listen  to  his  coaches.  He 
the  individual  nature  of  the  competition,  and  he 
out  something  about  himself:  he  hated  to  lose.  His 
es  homed  in  on  that  instinct.  "How  many  fencers  in 
nal  eight  actually  want  to  win  a  tournament?"  Ed 
rds,  one  of  his  first  coaches,  asked  him.  "All  eight," 
1  answered.  "No,"  said  Richards,  "four  of  them  are 
■  just  to  be  there,  two  want  to  do  well,  and  two  want 
i.  Remember  that  and  be  one  of  the  two." 
5  Bravin,  who  was  six  years  older  than  Nick,  went  off 
rvard  and  fenced  on  the  Harvard  team.  Coming  home 
college  for  a  holiday  break,  he  was  stunned  to  find 
lange  in  his  little  brother.  Not  only  had  he  become  a 
or  fencer,  but  all  his  exceptional  qualities,  intellectual 
physical,  had  been  fused  together  through  this  de- 
ing  sport.  It  was  also  who  Nick  Bravin  had  become 
)erson— skillful,  strong,  confident,  audacious, 
fenced  at  increasingly  higher  levels,  while  still  play- 
)otball  at  Alexander  Hamilton  High  School  in  Los 
es— he  was  one  of  the  smallest  men  on  the  team, 
chedule  was  brutal:  up  at  six  a.m.,  school  starting 
'en,  football  practice  from  two  to  five  in  the  after- 
fencing  practice  at  six.  His  biggest  decision  in 
days  was  whether  to  go  home  briefly  for  a  bite 
t  after  football  practice  or  go  directly  to  fencing. 


He  was  16  years  old,  still  growing,  and  perpetually  ex- 
hausted. But  his  friend  Al  Carter  would  not  let  him  sleep 
through  his  fencing  lessons.  They  were  about  the  same  age 
and  the  two  best  fencers  in  the  area.  Carter  would  call  up, 
listen  to  his  friend's  complaints  that  he  was  tired  and  in 
pain,  and  then  tell  Bravin  he  would  pick  him  up  in  15  min- 
utes. The  two  thought  of  little  else  but  college  and  future 
Olympic  glory;  the  vanity  license  plate  on  Carter's  car  in 
those  days  read:  92  goald.  They  would  attend  the  same 
college  and  lead  it  to  a  national  championship.  Many 
schools  courted  them  and  the  University  of  Pennsylvania, 
a  traditional  fencing  power,  seemed  likely  to  get  them. 

But  Bravin  visited  Stanford  and  was  overwhelmed 
by  the  beauty  of  the  campus  if  not  the  quality 
of  the  fencing.  Stanford  was  hardly  known  as 
a  powerhouse  in  the  sport.  That  meant  the  lev- 
el of  competition  in  daily  practice  was  not 
nearly  as  good  as  it  was  at  Penn  or  Columbia. 
Also,  Tulum,  the  new  coach,  was  unknown  to  Bravin,  and 
in  fencing  the  personal  relationship  of  the  coach  to  his 
fencers  is  considered  critical.  Tulum  was  wary  of  the  ways 
of  American  college  recruiting.  When  Bravin  asked  Tulum 
for  a  trial  lesson,  Tulum  said  no,  he  did  not  do  auditions. 
What  do  you  mean,  no?  thought  Bravin.  I'm  twice  as 
good  as  any  fencer  you  have,  and  I  may  be  the  best  fencer 


133 


Call  your  Avon  Representative  or 

1-800-F0R-AV0N 


Guess  which  one's  the  Olympic  gold  medalist  in  springboard  diving. 


Avon 


SPEED 

The  1995  Men's  Eight  rowing  team:  Jon  Brown,  Sean  Hall.  Fred  Honebein,  Bob  Kaehler,  Jeff  Klepacki,  Jamie  Koven,  Mike 
Peterson,  Steve  "Scrappy"  Segaloff,  and  Don  Smith.  "Being  a  coxswain  prepares  you  for  life,"  says  Segaloff. 


you  ever  get,  and  you're  saying  no  to  me?  "No,"  Tulum 
repeated  as  Bravin  stood  there  dumbstruck.  "I'm  not  go- 
ing to  give  you  a  practice  lesson.  You're  not  going  to  try 
me  out."  Zoran  Tulum  had  his  rules,  and  he  had  his  sus- 
picion that  altogether  too  many  middle-class  American 
kids  were  spoiled.  "We'd  like  to  have  you,  but  if  you  want 
to  take  your  talent  elsewhere,  that's  fine  with  me." 

Bravin  was  stunned.  Every  other  college  in  the  country 
with  a  fencing  team  wanted  him;  his  choice  meant  commit- 
ting four  years  of  his  life  to  a  school  and  a  coach,  risking 
his  chances  of  becoming  a  national  champion.  Yet  this  man 
would  not  even  give  him  a  trial  lesson.  "All  I  can  offer  you," 
Tulum  added,  "is  hard  work  and  good  weather.  Period." 

Tn  a  way  their  meeting  was  like  a  fencing  bout,  Bravin 
later  figured  out.  Tulum  was  pitting  his  ego  against 
Bravin's.  There  was  something  about  that  and  some- 
thing about  Tulum's  sheer  bluntness  that  Bravin  liked. 
In  the  end  it  was  a  hard  decision,  so  he  called  his 
older  brother  and  asked  his  opinion.  Jess  told  him 
that  fencing  was  important  but  that  competitive  fencing  was 
not  forever— he  might  break  a  leg  on  any  given  day  and  end 
his  career.  Jess  told  him  to  make  his  decision  based  on  the 
school,  not  the  fencing  team  or  coach.  So,  while  his  friend  Al 
Carter  went  to  Perm,  Nick  Bravin  decided  to  go  to  Stanford. 
Bravin  and  Tulum  were  both  driven  and  willful,  and  at 
first  the  two  constantly  battled.  Bravin  did  not  consider 
the  competition  among  his  teammates  good  enough,  so  he 

136 


would  go  off  to  practice  at  a  club  in  San  Francisco.  Th 
meant  missing  practice,  which  irritated  Tulum  and  h 
teammates.  Tulum  threatened  to  kick  him  off  the  tear 
"We're  better  off  without  you,"  Tulum  would  say. 

Yet  Tulum  was  a  very  good  coach.  He  was  shrewd 
knowing  how  to  challenge  his  young  star.  One  of  the  fir 
things  he  did  was  print  up  a  sign  for  Bravin:  second  suck 
it  said.  Not  only  did  Bravin  become  a  better  fencer,  he  b 
came  more  passionate  about  fencing.  His  objective  was  nc 
merely  athletic  but  in  time  spiritual  as  well.  He  wanted  th 
peace  of  mind  that  came  with  reaching  the  highest  level 
his  abilities.  He  wanted  to  try  to  be  the  best  at  one  thin 
even  if  he  did  his  best  and  failed.  He  was  aware  of  the  dar 
ger  implicit  in  so  singular  an  ambition,  that  it  demanded  a 
overwhelming  amount  of  sacrifice— exams  taken  on  aii 
planes  to  tournaments,  fitting  in  homework  while  his  class 
mates  were  having  fun.  He  knew  he  was  giving  up  part  o 
his  youth.  But  the  alternative  was  worse:  to  stop  just  shor 
of  true  excellence.  There  were,  he  thought,  altogether  to< 
many  people  who  did  that,  who  were  haunted  for  the  res 
of  their  lives  by  the  question  of  how  good  they  might  havt 
been  had  they  tried  just  a  little  harder.  Whatever  else,  h< 
vowed,  that  question  would  not  go  unanswered  in  his  life 

Tulum  preached  that  fencing  was  50  percent  athletic  anc 
50  percent  psychological  and  intellectual,  that  in  additior 
to  the  physical  talent  of  a  Michael  Jordan  you  needed  the 
strategic  ability  and  the  psychological  acumen  of  a  Gar) 
Kasparov  because  you  had  to  stay  several  moves  ahead  ol 


id  fa 

fswi 
tf  the 

imei 

*J>  V 

|0ffi 


to 

tail 


'Evi 


STRENGTH 

In  1995,  John  Godina  set  the  N.C.A.A.  shot-put  record  of  72  feet  TA  inches,  competing  for  U.C.L.A.: 
"Maybe  I  am  destined  to  be  the  best  of  all  time.  Who  knows?" 


your  opponent.  Attitude  was  crucial.  In  fencing,  if  you 
think  someone  is  better,  he'll  end  up  being  better.  For  years 
a  kind  of  national  inferiority  complex  had  plagued  Ameri- 
can fencers.  At  international  meets  they  saw  foreign  teams 
that  were  so  well  subsidized  they  even  came  with  their  own 
cooks.  Such  wealth  and  power  engendered  a  certain  amount 
of  swagger.  The  Americans  felt  like  the  poor  stepchildren 
of  the  sport  and  were  beaten  all  too  readily.  To  draw  an 
American  in  an  international  tournament,  Bravin  noted, 
was  virtually  regarded  as  drawing  a  bye.  He  himself  had 
done  poorly  in  the  1992  Olympics.  But  then  he  had  been 
only  21,  and  since  fencers  reach  their  peaks  in  their  late 
20s  and  early  30s,  he  still  had  a  bright  future. 

Two  years  later  he  was  coming  into  his  own  and  just 
beginning  to  beat  some  of  the  best  fencers  in  the  world. 
It  was  at  this  point  that  he  entered  law  school,  and  he 
found  it  was  hard  to  be  a  wolf  both  at  fencing  and  at  his 
studies.  Tulum,  of  course,  had  not  been  happy  with  the 
idea  of  law  school— it  was  a  terrible  distraction,  he  thought. 
"Every  day  you  don't  practice  all  out,"  he  said,  "is  like 
losing  three  days:  the  day  you  lose  by  slipping  just  a  lit- 
tle, the  day  you  lose  by  not  getting  just  a  little  better,  and 
the  day  you  lose  because  your  opponent  gets  better." 
Bravin  had  tried  to  stay  in  shape,  but  it  was  difficult.  In 
1995  when  he  arrived  in  Louisville  for  the  nationals  he 
thought  he  was  fencing  well  and  was  confident  he  would 
win  his  fourth  national  championship.  But  Tulum  thought 
he  had  been  coasting  on  his  name  for  a  while. 


Now,  as  Bravin  negotiated  Rome  for  his  younger 
colleagues,  Cliff  Bayer  was  No.  1.  When  Bravin 
was  winning  his  first  national  championship, 
Bayer  had  been  only  13,  still  collecting  base- 
ball cards.  True,  he  collected  them  feverishly, 
determined  to  have  a  better  set  than  any  of  his 
friends.  The  son  of  a  New  York  City  doctor,  he  walked  a 
neighbor's  dog  for  $20  a  week  so  he  could  buy  more  cards. 
He  also  became  so  skillful  at  trading  cards,  his  brother, 
Greg,  later  remembered,  he  picked  up  the  nickname  Rip- 
off  Cliff.  There  were  complaints  from  neighboring  parents 
to  the  senior  Bayers  that  Cliff  had  snookered  their  kids. 

Bayer,  like  Bravin,  took  up  fencing  because  his  older 
brother  had  done  it.  He  had  become  impatient  with  base- 
ball—he thought  his  teammates  did  not  play  as  hard  as  he 
did.  In  fencing  he  found  a  sport  where  there  was  no  one  to 
blame  but  himself  when  things  went  wrong.  His  first  coach, 
Miklos  Bartha,  a  Hungarian  emigre  now  in  his  70s,  was  a 
distinguished  figure  in  New  York  fencing  circles.  Bayer's  fa- 
ther, Dr.  Michael  Bayer,  remembers  when  Bartha  told  him 
his  son  would  make  a  champion:  "I  looked  out  and  saw 
nothing,  but  Miklos  had  a  practiced  eye  and  he  knew  what 
made  a  great  athlete— the  willpower  and  the  instinct.  He 
could  look  at  a  little  boy  of  nine  and  see  it  all:  the  charac- 
ter, the  inner  toughness,  and  the  drive."  Like  Bravin,  Bayer 
did  not  enjoy  the  drudgery  of  the  early  training— the  repe- 
titious drills  of  advance  and  retreat,  the  dancing  classes  with 
swords.  But  he  rose  to  competition,  (Continued  on  page  205) 


137 


©  SMH  (US)  Inc   1996 


■MMnBamiMHmwwwHiiinniirnniin^iniMwiiwiiiiiiimiiiiiiii 


It  will  celebrate  the  athletes  of  the 
1996  Olympic  Games.  An  Olympic 
Portfolio  by  Annie  Leibovitz  will  appear 
as  a  unique  work  in  progress  at  the 
Swatch  Pavilion  in  Centennial  Olympic 
Park   during   the   Olympic   Games. 

A  GLOBAL  GATHERING.  A   SINGULAR   TRIBUTE 

These  extraordinary  images  will  then 
make  a  five-month  world  tour  before 
being  presented  to  the  International 
Olympic  Committee,  the  U.S.  Olympic 
Committee,  and  the  Atlanta  Committee  for 
the  Olympic  Games  for  their  permanent 
collections.  Swatch  is  very  pleased  to 
help  commemorate  the  Centennial  Olympic 
Games  with  this  lasting  legacy. 


swatdin 


SWISSMADE  J& 

OFFICIAL    TIMEKEEPER    OF    THE    1996    OLYMPIC    GAMES.  uu*m, 


T  17T 

THE 

GAMES 
BEGIN . . . 

ANNIE  LEIBOVITZ  photographs 
61  of  Americas  most  promising  athletes 
as  they  vie  for  a  chance  to  compete 
at  the  1996  Summer  Olympic 
Games  in  Atlanta 


track-and-field  adj  (1905): 

of,  relating  to,  or  being  any  of  various 
competitive  athletic  events  (as 
running,  jumping,  and  weight  throwing) 
performed  on  a  running  track  and 
on  the  adjacent  field. 

Dennis  Mitchell;  Sicklerville,  New  Jersey. 
100-meter  sprint. 
Age,  30;  5  feet  9  inches;  150  pounds. 
B.A.,  University  of  Florida,  1989. 

Two  Olympic  medals:  gold  (1992,  4xl00-meter 
relay),  bronze  (1992, 100-meter  sprint). 

Mitchell  beat  perennial  favorites  Leroy  Burrell 
and  Carl  Lewis  to  take  the  gold  medal 
in  the  100-meter  sprint  at  the  1994  Goodwill 
Games  in  St.  Petersburg,  Russia. 

Photographed  at  the  ARCO  Training  Center  in 
Chula  Vista,  California,  October  9,  1995. 


,     .mil    rninaHW-ffiw  if    JIM   '"""f '*""*"■ 


'AN  OLYMPIC 


All  photographs  on  pages  125  through  159  from 
ilBOVITZ,  sponsored  by  Swatch. 
en  at  the  XXVI  Olympic  Games. 


■ 


m 


SWlIIlv6(befl2tl 

1  a:  to  propel  oneself  in  we 

natural  means  (as  movements  of  the 

fins,  or  tail)  b:  to  play 

water  (as  at  a  beach  or  swimming 

Jenny  Thompson;  Dover,  New  HampJ 
400-meter  freestyle  1 
Age,  23;  5  feet  10  inches;  160  poj 
B.A.,  Stanford, 

Three  Olympic  medals:  gold  (1992,  400-J 
freestyle  relay— anchored  world  record)] 
(1992,  400-meter  medley  relay-anchored 
record),  silver  (1992, 100-meter  frees| 

Thompson  was  named  United  States  Swir 
Swimmer  of  the  Year  in 

Photographed  at  Lake  Allatc 
Atlanta,  Georgia,  August  14, 


divevZ>(befl2thcen): 
ter  intentionally  and  esp.  headfirst;  also:  to  execute  a  dive. 

Mark  Lenzi;  Fredericksburg,  Virginia.  Springboard, 
et  5  inches;  145  pounds.  B.S.,  Indiana  University,  1990. 

One  Olympic  medal:  gold  (1992,  three-meter  board). 

Lenzi  was  seven-time  U.S.  springboard  champion; 

red  from  diving  in  1993  and  later  attended  flight  school, 

but  resumed  training  in  April  1995. 

Phptographed  at  the  Heritage  Park  Aquatics  Center  in 
Irvine,  California,  February  13,  1996. 


*#**'*%, 


A 


v 


■ : 


I 
■ 


■ 


n» 


&*-\ 


W 


w 


L 


Walter  pO'lO/M  1884): 

a  goal  game  similar  to  soccer  that  is 
played  in  water  by  teams  of  swimmers  using 
a  ball  resembling  a  soccer  ball. 

From  the  20-member 

U.S.  Men's  National  Water  Polo  Team: 

Troy  Barnhart,  Chris  Duplanty, 

Kirk  Everist,  Chris  Humbert, 

Rick  McNair,  Alex  Rousseau. 

Gold  medalists  at  the  1995  Pan  American  Games. 

First  men  to  pose  in  the  Sports  Illustrated 
swimsuit  issue,  1994. 

Photographed  in  Culver  City,  California, 
February  11,  1996. 


I 


cycles  (is 

2:  to  ride  a  cycle;  specif:  bic) 

Rebecca  Twigg;  Seattle,  Washing! 

Individual  pursj 

Age,  33;  5  feet  7  inches;  125  pouri 

B.S.,  University  of  Washington,  is| 

Two  Olympic  med 
bronze  (1992,  individual  pursJ 
silver  (1984,  road  ra 

Twigg  retired  from  1988  to  lil 

but  returned  to  set  wil 

record  of  3  minutes  36.081  seco I 

in  3,000-meter  individual  punl 

at  1995  World  Cycling  Championsfl 

in  Bogota,  Colombia  (el 

with  a  steel  plate  and  sej 

screws  holding  her  broil 

collarbone  togeth| 

Photographed  at 
velodrome  at  Memorial  F\ 

in  Colorado  Sprinl 
Colorado,  August  24,  19] 


\ 


mrftanrirMfnaHilllUVlCilill.  lllii'hitrtffl^fHn^^i.irrwtiTnmTnivrrnnrt-fiTnrTir-^ 


gym  «nas- tics  k  (1652): 

1  a:  physical  exercises  designed  to  develop 

strength  and  coordination  b:  a  competitive 

sport  in  which  individuals  perform  optional 

and  prescribed  acrobatic  feats  mostly 

on  special  apparatus  in  order  to  demonstrate 

strength,  balance,  and  body  control. 

Dominique  Moceanu; 

Hollywood,  California. 

Individual  all-around. 

Age,  14;  4  feet  5  inches;  70  pounds. 

Currently  a  ninth-grader  at  Northland 

Christian  School,  Houston,  Texas. 

At  age  13,  Moceanu  became 
the  youngest  gymnast  ever  to  win  the 
women's  national  all-around  title. 

John  Roethtisberger; 

Minneapolis,  Minnesota. 

Individual  all-around. 

Age,  25;  5  feet  7  inches;  150  pounds. 

B.A.,  University  of  Minnesota,  1994. 

Roethlisberger  is  the  only  male 

gymnast  to  win  three  N.C.A.A. 

titles  and  four  National  All-Around 

Championships. 


Photographed  in  Houston,  Texas, 
February  18,  1996. 


beach  vol»ley«ball«(i989): 

a  game  played  by  volleying 

an  inflated  ball  over  a  net  on  sand. 


Nancy  Reno;  Glen  Ellyn,  Illinois. 
Age,  30;  5  feet  11  inches;  155  pounds. 
B.A.,  M.S.,  Stanford,  where  she 
played  varsity  volleyball  and 
was  named  ail-American  in  1988. 

Reno  was  an  environmental 
consultant/research  diver  on  the 
Exxon  Valdez  oil-spill  cleanup  in 
1990.  She  and  partner  Holly  McPeak 
have  won  14  beach-volleyball 
tournaments  since  1991;  with  other 
partners,  Reno  has  won 
28  tournaments  since  1990. 

Photographed  in  Mission  Beach, 
California,  February  9,  1996. 


cham»pi*on«(i3thcen) 

1 :  warrior,  fighter;  also: 
a  winner  of  first  prize  or  first 
place  in  competition;  one 
who  shows  marked  superiority. 

Jackie  Joyner-Kersee; 

East  St.  Louis,  Illinois. 

Heptathlon,  longjump. 

Age,  34;  5  feet  10  inches;  153  pounds. 

B.A.,  U.C.L.A.,  1985,  where  she 

played  on  the  women's  varsity  basketball 

team  from  1981  to  1985  and  where 

she  met  her  husband/coach,  Bob  Kersee. 

Five  Olympic  medals:  gold  (1992,  heptathlon; 
1988,  heptathlon  and  longjump),  silver    • 
(1984,  heptathlon),  bronze  (1992,  longjump). 

Joyner-Kersee  is  the  world  recordholder 
in  the  women's  heptathlon.  She  has 
been  dubbed  "the  greatest  athlete 
in  the  world"  by  such  fellow  sportsmen 
as  1976  Olympic  decathlon  gold 
medalist  Bruce  Jenner. 

Photographed  at  U.C.L.A.  's 

Drake  Stadium  in  Los  Angeles,  California 

February  26,  1996. 


V 


greco-roman  wrestling n, «™  cap  g 

wrestling  in  which  the  use  of  the  lgj 

attack  or  defense  is  forbidden  and  a  fall  is  gained 

by  the  contestant  who  pins  both  his 

opponent's  shoulders  to  the  ground. 

Matt  Ghaffari;  Tehran,  (ran. 

Age,  34;  6  feet  4  inches;  286i  pounds. 

B.B.A.,  Cleveland  State  University,  1984. 

Four-time  World  Cup  Greco-Rom'an-wrestling 

champion;  V^Qfld  Championships 

bronze  medalist  in  1995  and  Silver  medalist  in  1991; 

two-time  gajiArniricah  Games  gold  medalist. 

■  ,  . 
...    James  Johnson;  Greenville,  North  Carolina. 
<;Age,  38;  6  feet  4  inches;  220  pounds. 
B.A.,  University  of  Kentucky,  1976. 

1994  World  Cup  silver  medalist; 
1991  Pan  American  Games  silver  medalist. 


Photographed  at  the  Olympic  Training  Center  in 
Colorado  Springs,  Colorado,  July  28,  1995. 


syn  •  chro  •  nized  swimming 

n  (1950):  swimming  in  which  the  movements  of 
one  or  more  swimmers  are  synchronized 
with  a  musical  accompaniment  so  as  to  form 
changing  patterns. 

From  the  10-member  U.S.  Olympic  Synchronized 
Swimming  Team:  Becky  Dyroen-Lancer, 
Jill  Savery,  Heather  Simmons-Carrasco, 
Jill  Sudduth. 

During  a  routine,  the  swimmers 
stay  underwater  up  to  one  minute. 

Gold  medalists  at  the  1995  Pan  American 
Games;  gold  medalists  at  the 
1994  World  Aquatic  Championships. 

Photographed  in  Culver  City,  A 

California,  February  11,  1996. 


7 


fencing/!  (1581)-. 

:  the  art  or  practice  of  attack  and 
..■tense  with  the  foil,  epee,  or  saber. 

^liff  Bayer;  New  York,  New  York. 
vlen's  team  and  individual  foil  events. 
\ge,  18:  6  feet  1  inch;  160  pounds. 
Graduated  from  Riverdale  Country  Day 
School  in  1995;  will  attend  the 
A/harton  School  at  the 
Jniversity  of  Pennsylvania  this  fall. 

3ayer  won  the  1995  U.S.  national 
;hampionships  to  become  the 
oungest  men's  foil-fencing 
.hampion  in  history. 

Photographed  at  the  Olympic 
Training  Center  in  Colorado  Springs, 
Colorado,  July  25,  1995. 


WE 


' 


Mel 


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field  hock  -ey, 


whose  object  is  to  direct  a 

ball  into  the  opponent's  goal  with 

a  hockey  stick. 


From  the  24-member  U.S.  Men's 
Senior  National  Field  Hockey 
Team:  Nick  Butcher, 
Steve  Danielson,  Daniel  Eichner, 
Shawn  Hindy,  Binh  Hoang, 
Steve  Jennings,  Ryan  Langford. 
Ben  Maruquin,  Marq  Mellor, 
John  O'Neill,  Brian  Schledorn, 
Otto  Steffers,  Phil  Sykes, 
Tom  Vano,  Steve  Van  Randwijck 
Steve  Wagner,  Eelco  Wass 
Scott  William31 

Photographed 

Center  in  Chula  Vtsta,  Califorht 

February 26,  1996. 


mmuiswiKmtMtmn 


;^^P 


^ 


weight  lift«ing«  (1897): 

to  lift  barbells  in  competition 
or  as  an  exercise. 

Wes  Barnett;  St.  Joseph,  Missouri. 
Age,  26;  6  feet  1  inch;  238  pounds. 
B.A.,  University  of  Colorado,  1994. 

Best  lifts:  Snatch-165  kilograms 

(363.75  pounds), 

American  record,  March  16, 1995. 

Clean  and  jerk-212.5  kilograms 

(468.25  pounds), 

American  record,  July  26,  1995. 

Photographed  at  the  Olympic 
Training  Center  in  Colorado  Springs, 
Colorado,  July  27,  1995. 


iMMtftfl^te. 


ar  •  chery  «d  sth  cen); 

1 :  the  art.  practice,  or  skill  of  shooting 
u  ith  bow  and  arrow. 


Janet  Barrs;  Mesa,  Arizona. 
Women's  team  and  individual  events. 
Age,  26:  5  feet  7  inches;  125  pounds. 
B.A.,  Arizona  State  University,  1993. 

U.S.  Olympic  Festival  gold  medalist,  1993; 
U.S.  Intercollegiate  Archery  champion, 
1990  and  1992. 


Janet  is  married  to  fellow  Olympic 
archer  Jay  Barrs. 

Photographed  at  the  ARCO 

Training  Center  in  Chula  Vista,  California, 

"ivember  18,  1995. 


heart-break ». 

( 14th  cen):  crushing  grief. 

Byron  Davis;  Cleveland,  Ohio. 

Age,  25;  6  feet  3  inches;  190  pounds. 

Davis,  who  was  named  an  ail-American  in 

1993,  began  swimming  at  age  eight 

at  his  local  Y.M.C.A.  because  the  bowling  I 

league  was  filled. 

On  March  10,  in  a  race  that  had  the  crowd 
on  its  feet  screaming,  Davis  faded  in  the 
final  stretch  of  the  100-meter  butterfly  event 
and  failed  by  three-tenths  of  a  second 
in  his  attempt  to  become  the  first 
African-American  swimmer  to  qualify  for 
the  Summer  Olympic  Games. 

"You're  saying,  'If  I  could  have  done  one 
little  thing  extra. '  You  pull  your  hair 
out  about  that  for  about  a  night  and  then 
you  wake  up  the  next  morning  and  say, 
'O.K.,  it's  a  new  day.'" 

Photographed  at  the  Olympic 
Training  Center  in  Colorado  Springs, 
Colorado,  August  14,  1995. 


Definitions:  Merriam-Webster's  Collegiate 
Dictionary,  Tenth  Edition  and  Webster's 
Third  New  International  Dictionary  of  the 
English  Language,  Unabridged, 


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■  ^w  ' 


Helen  Hunt  has  achieved 

a  stealth  stardom 

as  the  attractively  loopy 

Jamie  Buchman  on 

the  TV  hit  Mad  About  You. 

DAVID  KAMP  gets  a 

dose  of  Hunt's  quirky  charms 

as  she  goes  big-screen  big-time 

with  the  lead  female  role 
Twister,  Jan  De  Bont's  explosive 
blockbuster 
follow-up  to  Speed 


m 


Ae9 


eading  hundreds  of  po- 


tential 'Hers'  and  About  Men"  columns  each  week,"  announced 
Tlie  New  York  Times  Magazine  on  January  21,  "editors  found 
increasing  repetition:  toys  for  boys,  sharing  a  motel  room, 
resentment  of  parents.  Meanwhile,  many  writers  have  of- 
fered affecting  and  instructive  stories  in  which  gender  is  not 
the  fulcrum.  Consolidating  'Hers'  and  'About  Men'  into  [a 
new  column  called]  'Lives'  opens  the  way  for  such  stories." 

For  Helen  Hunt,  it  was  a  date  that  will  live  in  infamy. 
"I'm  so  mortified  by  it  that  I  cannot  describe  it,"  she  says. 
"There's  something  so  comforting  about  reading  ..."  A 
pause,  and  a  smirk  at  the  words  to  follow:  "...  gender- 
specific  stories.  I  lived  for  the  'Hers'  column  every  Satur- 
day night,  when  my  Sunday  New  York  Times  would  come. 
I  think  what  they've  done  is  the  most  malicious  thing,  and 
I  can't  believe  it's  gone!" 

Well,  you  offer,  trying  to  soothe,  at  least  they've  got 
that  new,  non -gender-specific  thing  called  "Lives." 

"I  hate  it!  Can  I  just  say  I  hate  it?  I  should  be  writing 
them  a  letter.  I  hate  it  so  much!" 

It  comes  to  light  that  Hunt  and  the  Times  Magazine  have 
a  bit  of  a  history:  specifically,  she  submitted  her  own  po- 
tential "Hers"  column  for  publication  a  year  and  a  half  ago, 
and  the  editors  told  her  it  needed  work.  "They  said  it  was 
two  separate  pieces— write  one  or  the  other.  But  it  didn't 
feel  that  way  to  me.  It's  two  stories  converging  to  say  one 
thing.  I  felt  like  they  were  kind  of  right  and  kind  of  wrong, 
and  I  couldn't  find  my  way  to  doing  it  the  way  they  want- 
ed me  to  do  it."  So  no  revisions  were  ever  exchanged,  and 
the  piece  never  ran.  Out  of  this  tale  of  missed  opportunity 
comes,  strangely,  a  reassuring  thought:  Helen  Hunt  really  is 
like  that.  Animatedly  decrying  the  demise  of  a  favorite  col- 
umn, candidly  hashing  out  the  details  of  a  pet  project  that 
didn't  come  off,  waiting  with  bated  breath  on  Saturday 
night  for  the  arrival  of  the  Sunday  Times— these  are  pre- 
cisely the  sorts  of  things  that  Jamie  Buchman,  Hunt's  char- 
acter on  the  NBC  sitcom  Mad  About  You,  might  do. 

Mad  About  You,  now  winding  up  its  fourth  season,  is  a 
quiet  hit,  neither  the  merchandising  juggernaut  that  is 
Friends  nor  the  quotable  warhorse  that  is  Seinfeld;  it  has  its 
little  patch,  which  it  works  with  aplomb.  Pauline  Kael  once 
wrote  of  Louis  Malle's  Murmur  of  the  Heart,  "This  is  per- 
haps the  first  time  on  film  lhat  anyone  has  shown  us  the 
bourgeoisie  enjoying  its  privileges."  So  it  is  with  Hunt's 
show,  an  anomalous  (for  TV)  look  at  a  happy  upper -middle- 
class  marriage,  less  relentlessly  fretful  than  thirtysomething, 

168 


less  rose-tinted  and  didactic  than  The  Cosby  Show,  ai 
miles  away  from  the   Weltschmerz  of  Ingmar  Bergmai 
Scenes  from  a  Marriage,  which,  if  memory  serves,  at  o:  [|W* 
point  has  Erland  Josephson  kicking  Liv  Ullmann's  he; 
in.  Jamie  Buchman  is  a  publicist,  her  husband,  Paul  (Pa 
Reiser,  who  is  one  of  the  show's  creators),  is  a  docume '  whotber: 
tary  filmmaker,  and  they  live  with  their  big,  agreeable  d< 
in  an  enormous  apartment  on  lower  Fifth  Avenue  in 
hattan.  They  stay  in,  they  dine  out,  they  read  in  bed,  thj 
make  love,  they  occasionally  get  on  each  other's  nerv<| 
and,  above  all,  they  prefer  each  other's  company  to  am 
one  else's.  It's  all  so  cozy,  without  being  saccharine,  th 
Mad  About  You  evokes  an  even  greater  desire  than  usuj 
to  hear  that  the  actors  are  really  as  friendly  and  sharp 
the  characters  they  play.  You  want  to  know  that  Helil 
Hunt  is  Jamie  Buchman,  and  even  though  this  turns  o 
not  to  be  the  case— for  starters,  the  former  displays  an  er 
dition  and  seriousness  not  readily  apparent  in  the  latter 
it's  nice  to  discover  that  there  are  similarities  enough:  tl 
self-deprecating  sense  of  humor;  the  serene  demeanor  c| 
casionally  punctured  by  surprising,  contagious  bouts 
loopiness;  the  scrubbed,  unfussy  presentation  of  a  womH 
who  likes  looking  pretty  but  is  a  little  past  trying  to  loci 
cool.  It's  nice  to  learn  that  even  in  real  life  Hunt  has  faj 
en  for  a  funnyman  (her  steady  boyfriend  is  Hank  Azarj 
from  Tlie  Birdcage  and  TJie  Simpsons)  and  that  she  spen< 
every  Thanksgiving  with  her  friend  Anthony  EdwardJ 
ER's  saintly  Dr.  Mark  Greene,  about  whom  she  says— fu| 
ther  happy  confluence  of  fiction  and  reality— "Tony's 
menschy  guy.  He  totally  is.  He's  just  what  you  think." 


Odd,  then,  for  Hunt  to  be  turning  up,  of  a 
places,  in  the  starring  role  of  what  pro 
es  to  be  this  summer's  biggest  zillion-doll; 
explosion -laden  blockbuster:  Twister,  Jan  E 
Bont's  follow-up  to  his  1994  hit,  Speed.  Sai 
dra  Bullock's  turn  behind  the  wheel  in  tl 
earlier  film  marked  the  beginning  of  h< 
continuing  reign  as  America's  favorite  ordinary-seeming  f 
mous  woman,  and  the  current  Hollywood  wisdom  hi 
Hunt,  as  the  latest  of  De  Bont's  leading  ladies,  about  to  b 
come  similarly  huge.  (Typical  industry  thinking:  It's 
trend— it's  happened  once  before!)  Up  to  this  point  Hunt 
feature -film  roles  have  tended  toward  the  urban,  talky  an 
professional:  she  has  been  the  whippersnapper  agent  to  Bi 
ly  Crystal's  elderly  comedian  in  Mr.  Saturday  Night  am 
more  notably,  the  conflicted  book  editor  who  ministers  t 
her  extramarital  lover,  a  paralyzed  writer  played  by  Eric  Stolt 
in  Neal  Jimenez's  astonishingly  good  independent  film,  Tr, 
Waterdance.  Twister,  produced  by  Steven  Spielberg's  An 
blin  Entertainment  company,  represents  something  of  a  di 
parture.  As  its  title  suggests,  the  film  looses  De  Bont's  gi 
for  kinetic  mayhem  on  the  subject  of  tornadoes.  Hunt  an 
Bill  Paxton  play  Jo  and  Bill  Harding,  an  estranged  scier 
tist  couple  who  specialize  in  monitoring  and  chasing  toi 
nadoes  in  the  rural  Midwest.  Michael  Crichton's  screenpla 
pulls  a  deft  gender  reversal,  positing  Jo  as  the  fierce,  df 
termined  obsessive  with  a  difficult  past  and  Bill  as  th 
flummoxed,  sensible  spouse  who,  (Continued  on  page  21l 


CMPY 

1  ugh  she  says  she's  fallen  for 
F  ik  Azaria  of  The  Simpsons  and 
%  Birdcage,  Hunt  likes  the 
■  asional  holiday  away  with  her 
n :  friend,  actress  Helen  Slater. 
T  two  "live  like  nuns,  not  talking 
tl  ach  other  all  day,  just 
ling  books  and  meditating 


"Shesbeen 
working  nonstop 

since  she  was  a 
kid,  and  kept 

her  head  above 
the  madness/ 


SMOKE  SIGNALS 


Jeffrey  Wigand  is  the  beleaguered 

chief  witness  in  the  federal 

and  state  governments'  war  against 

Big  Tobacco.  Opposite, 

Mike  Wallace  and  executive 

producer  Don  Hewitt  of 

60  Minutes  fought  over  airing 

Wigand's story.  Insets, 

from  left:  the  February  1  head 

on  TJte  Hall  Street  Journal 

and  two  New  York  Times  headlines 

on  January  27. 


.   ••-      '' 


ft 


D«°il*  of  Tobacco  ET^^mSmi>^^ 


1 


by  NIGEL  PARRY 


ppp; 


y,  Jeffrey  Wigand  emerged  from  the 

sealed  world  of  Big  Tobacco  to  confront  the  nation's  third-largest 

cigarette  company,  Brown  &  Williamson.  Hailed  as  a  hero  by 

anti-smoking  forces  and  vilified  by  the  tobacco  industry,  Wigand 

is  at  the  center  of  an  epic  multibillion-dollar  struggle  that 

reaches  from  Capitol  Hill  to  the  hallowed  journalistic  halls  of 

CBS's  60  Minutes.  MARIE  BRENNEI  investigates 


I 


I 

The  Witness 

I  am  a  whistle-blower,"  he  says. 
"i  am  notorious.  It  is  a  kind 
of  infamy  doing  what  I  am 
doing,  isn't  that  what  they  say?" 
It  was  never  Jeffrey  Wigand's 
ambition  to  become  a  central 
figure  in  the  great  social  chron- 
icle of  the  tobacco  wars.  By 
his  own  description,  Wigand  is 
a  linear  thinker,  a  plodder.  On 
January  30.  when  he  and  I 
arrange  to  meet  at  the  sports 
bar  at  the  Hyatt  Regency  in 
Louisville,  he  is  in  the  first  phase 
of  understanding  that  he  has 
entered  a  particular  American 
nightmare  where  his  life  will 
no  longer  be  his  to  control.  His  lawyer 
will  later  call  this  period  "hell  week." 
Wigand  has  recently  learned  of  a  vi- 
cious campaign  orchestrated  against 
him,  and  is  trying  to  document  all  as- 
pects of  his  past.  "How  would  you 
feel  if  you  had  to  reconstruct  every 
moment  of  your  life?"  he  asks  me,  tense 
with  anxiety.  He  is  deluged  with  re- 
quests for  interviews.  TV  vans  are  of- 
ten set  up  at  DuPont  Manual,  the 
magnet  high  school  where  he  now  teach- 
es. In  two  days  Wigand.  the  former 
head  of  research  and  development 
(R&D)  at  the  Brown  &  Williamson 
Tobacco  Corp.,  will  be  on  the  front 
page  of  The  Wall  Street  Journal  for 
the  second  time  in  a  week.  Five  days 
from  now,  he  will  be  on  60  Minutes. 
Wigand  is  trapped  in  a  war  be- 
tween the  government  and  its  attempts 
to  regulate  the  $50  billion  tobacco  in- 
dustry and  the  tobacco  companies  them- 
selves, which  insist  that  the  government 
has  no  place  in  their  affairs.  Wigand 
is  under  a  temporary  restraining  or- 
der from  a  Kentucky  state  judge  not 
to  speak  of  his  experiences  at  Brown 


&  Williamson  (B&W).  He  is  mired  in 
a  swamp  of  charges  and  countercharges 
hurled  at  him  by  his  former  employ- 
er, the  third-largest  tobacco  company 
in  the  nation,  the  manufacturer  of  Kool, 
Viceroy,  and  Capri  cigarettes. 

In  the  bar,  Wigand  sits  with  his  se- 
curity man,  Doug  Sykes,  a  former  Se- 
cret Service  agent.  Wigand  is  worn  out, 
a  fighter  on  the  ropes.  He  has  reached 
that  moment  when  he  understands 
that  circumstances  are  catapulting 
him  into  history,  and  he  is  frightened, 
off  his  moorings.  He  wears  silver- 
rimmed  aviator  glasses,  which  he  takes 
off  frequently  to  rub  his  eyes.  Although 
he  has  been  on  the  CBS  Evening  News 
twice  in  the  last  five  days,  no  one  in 
the  bar  recognizes  him.  Wigand  is  53. 
He  has  coarse  silver  hair,  a  small 
nose,  and  a  fighter's  thick  neck  from 
his  days  as  a  black  belt  in  judo.  There 
is  a  wary  quality  in  his  face,  a  mys- 
terious darkness  that  reminds  me  of 
photographs  of  the  writer  John  Ir- 
ving. Wigand  wears  the  same  clothes 
I  have  seen  him  in  for  some  days- 
jeans  and  a  red  plaid  flannel  shirt,  his 
basic  wardrobe  for  a  $30.000 -a-year 
job  teaching  chemistry  and  Japanese. 

In  front  of  us,  on  a  large  screen,  a 
basketball  game  is  in  progress.  "They 
kept  me  up  until  two  a.m.  last  night. 
Just  when  I  thought  I  was  going  to 
get  some  sleep,  the  investigators  called 
me  at  midnight.  At  six  a.m.  I  was 
gotten  up  again  by  someone  from  60 
Minutes  telling  me  that  I  should  re- 
lax. How  am  I  supposed  to  relax?" 
Wigand  stares  at  the  TV  screen.  "You 
are  becoming  a  national  figure,"  I 
say.  Wigand  suddenly  sputters  with 
rage.  "I  am  a  national  figure  instead 
of  having  a  family.  O.K.?  I  am  going 
to  lose  economically  and  I  am  go- 
ing to  lose  my  family.  They  are  going 
to  use  the  trump  cards  on  me." 

I  follow  Wigand  out  of  the  Hyatt 
and  down  the  street  to  a  restaurant 
called  Kunz's.  A  light  snow  is  falling. 


Q 


By  this  time,  Jeff  Wigand  and  I  h;fe 
spent  several  days  together,  and  I  m 
accustomed  to  his  outbursts.  A  fo,i 
of  moral  outrage  seems  to  have  d.k 
en  him  from  B&W,  and  he  is  of!i 
irascible  and  sometimes,  on  persoji,. 
matters,  relentlessly  negative:  "Wil 
does  your  brother  think?"  "Ask  hii '' 
"Is  your  wife  a  good  mother?"  "/ 1 
her."  His  expression  hardens;  he  I 
treats  into  an  inner  zone. 

"When  you  were  in  your  30s,  hv 
did  you  think  your  life  was  going  I 
turn  out?"  I  ask  him.  Wigand  is  I 
longer  belligerent.  His  voice  is  qu ., 
modulated.  "I  thought  I  would  I 
very  successful.  Affluent.  I  started  't| 
$20,000  a  year  and  wound  up  t 
$300,000  a  year.  That  was  pretty  nic  ' 

All  through  dinner,  Wigand  ket 
his  cellular  phone  on  the  table, 
rings  as  we  are  having  coffee.  He 
plodes  in  anger  into  the  receiver:  "W   ^ 
do  you  want  to  know  where  I  ai 
What  do  you  want?  What  do  you  me^ 
what  am  I  doing?  It's   10  o'clock 
night.  .  .  .  What  do  you  need  to  cj 
nect  with  me  for?  I  am  not  a  trair 
dog.  You  are  going  to  have  to  expl 
to  me  what  you  are  doing  and  w 
you  are  doing  it  so  /  can  participat 
Wigand  narrows  his  eyes  and  shall 
his  head  at  me  as  if  to  signal  that 
is  talking  to  a  fool.  He  is  beyo 
snappish  now.  I  realize  that  he  is  sp&   lr| 
ing  to  one  of  his  legal  investigate! 
who  has  been  putting  in  16 -hour  d; 
on  his  behalf,  mounting  a  counter 
tack  against  his  accusers.  "You  ca  t 
just  drop  into  Louisville  and  have 
drop  what  I  am  doing.  No,  you  cat 

I   AM    NOT   LISTENING.   O.K.?   FINE.   Yi 
TELL   HIM   TO   FIND   SOMEBODY   ELSE    , 

Wigand  slams  the  telephone  on 
table.  "Everyone  on  the  legal  teamj  u 
pissed  off  because  I  am  in  Louisvi    ^ 
You  know  what  the  team  can  do! 
he  was  going  to  come  down  tod 
why  didn't  he  tell  me  he  was  cc 
ing?"  We  walk  out  of  Kunz's  and  true 
back  through  the  snow  toward  I 


Tim  going  to  lose  economically  and    I 
I  am  going  ttilose  my  family  They  are  going  ll 
use  the  trump  cards  on  me?  \ 


nt 


II  III  I  Ulii  i  n  mill 


Hyatt.  Across  from  the  hotel  is  the 
B&W  Tower,  where  Wigand  used  to 
be  a  figure  of  prestige,  a  vice  presi- 
dent with  a  wardrobe  of  crisp  white 
shirts  and  dark  suits.  "I  am  sick  of  it. 
Sick  of  hiding  in  a  hotel  and  living 
like  an  animal.  I  want  to  go  home," 
e  says  with  desperation  in  his  voice. 


" 


Jeffrey  Wigand  and  I  met  at  an 
anti-smoking-awards  ceremony 
in  New  York  on  January  18. 
Wigand  was  receiving  an  hon- 
orarium of  $5,000,  and  for- 
mer surgeon  general  C.  Everett 
Koop  was  going  to  introduce 
him.  Wigand  radiated  glumness, 
an  unsettling  affect  for  a  man  who 
was  in  New  York  to  be  honored  along 
with  such  other  anti-smoking  activists 
as  California  congressman  Henry  Wax- 
man  and  Victor  Crawford,  the  former 
Tobacco  Institute  lobbyist,  who  died 
soon  after  of  throat  cancer.  "I  am  not 
sure  I  should  be  here,"  Wigand  told 
me  moments  after  we  met.  "Something 
terrible  has  happened  to  me.  Brown 
&  Williamson  has  gotten  private  rec- 
ords from  the  Louisville  courthouse. 
A  local  TV  reporter  has  come  to  my 
school  to  ask  about  my  marriage.  They 
are  trying  to  ruin  my  life.  When  I  get 
back  to  Louisville,  I  may  not  have  a 
job.  A  public-relations  man  in  New 
York  named  John  Scanlon  is  trying  to 
smear  me.  I  have  five  sets  of  lawyers 
who  are  representing  me,  and  no  one 
can  agree  on  a  strategy."  Then  he 
said,  without  any  special  emphasis,  "If 
they  are  successful  in  ruining  my  cred- 
ibility, no  other  whistle-blower  will  ever 
come  out  of  tobacco  and  do  what  I 
have  done."  One  hour  later  he  was  on 
the  stage  accepting  his  award  and  giv- 
ing a  halting  history  of  his  conflict  with 
B&W.  "My  children  have  received  death 
threats,  my  reputation  and  character 
have  been  attacked  systematically  in 
an  organized  smear  campaign,"  he  said, 
bis  voice  breaking. 

When  I  saw  Jeffrey  Wigand  for  the 
first  time  in  Louisville,  he  was  at  the 
end  of  one  crisis  and  the  beginning  of 
another.  We  had  been  scheduled  to 
meet  for  our  first  formal  interview 
that  evening,  and  I  waited  for  him  to 
call  me.  Out  of  necessity,  Wigand  has 
become  a  man  of  secret  telephone  num- 
bers and  relayed  phone  messages;  there 
is  an  atmosphere  of  conspiracy  around 
any  meeting  with  him,  with  tense  in- 


structions and  harried  intermediaries. 
On  my  voice  mail  in  the  hotel,  the 
messages  grew  increasingly  dramatic. 
"This  is  Dr.  Wigand's  security  man. 
He  will  call  you  at  four  p.m."  "Marie, 
this  is  Dr.  Wigand.  Some  problems 
have  developed.  I  am  not  sure  I  can 
have  dinner."  At  one  point  I  picked 
up  the  telephone.  "How  are  you?"  I 
asked.  "Let's  put  it  this  way:  I've  had 
better  days."  Then:  "The  F.B.I,  is  com- 
ing to  check  out  a  death  threat."  Lat- 
er: "My  wife,  Lucretia,  wants  me  to 
leave  the  house.  I  am  trying  not  to 
be  served  with  papers."  Finally:  "I 
don't  have  a  place  to  go." 

By  the  time  Wigand  decided  to  move 
temporarily  into  the  Hyatt,  it  was  10:30 
p.m.  I  walked  downstairs  and  knocked 
on  his  door.  I  was  surprised  by  the 
change  in  his  appearance  in  just  one 
week.  He  leaned  against  the  TV  on 
the  wall,  diminished  and  badly  shaken. 
"I  have  lost  my  family.  I  don't  know 
what  I  am  going  to  do,"  he  said. 

He  had  hurriedly  packed  a  few  shirts; 
he  was  missing  even  the  lesson  plans 
for  his  classes  the  next  day  at  the  high 
school.  Before  coming  to  the  Hyatt, 
Wigand  had  broken  down  at  home  in 
the  presence  of  an  F.B.I,  agent  who 
had  come  to  investigate  a  death  threat 
and  a  bullet  that  had  been  placed  in 
the  Wigands'  mailbox  the  night  be- 
fore. Wigand  said  his  wife  told  him, 
"You  have  put  us  all  in  danger,  and 
I  want  you  out  of  the  house." 

Over  the  next  two  weeks,  he  would 
hide  in  Room  1108  at  the  Hyatt,  reg- 
istered under  another  name.  On  Jan- 
uary 26,  his  second  night  in  exile,  I 
joined  him  to  watch  himself  as  the 
lead  story  on  the  CBS  Evening  News. 
Wigand  was  fraught,  particularly  sour 
with  one  of  his  lawyers,  Todd  Thomp- 
son, when  he  walked  into  the  room. 
"Don't  you  say  hello  to  me,  Jeff?" 
he  asked.  "I  am  angry  at  the  world," 
Wigand  answered.  He  was  sitting  at 
a  small  table.  On  his  shirt  was  a  but- 
ton that  read:  if  you  think  educa- 
tion   IS    EXPENSIVE,   TRY    IGNORANCE. 

"I  have  no  idea  where  my  wallet  and 
diary  are!"  he  said.  "Why  should  she 
have  my  assets?  Why  should  I  con- 
tinue to  pay  her  expenses?" 

That  same  day  Tlie  Wall  Street  Jour- 
nal had  published  a  front-page,  3,300- 
word  story  with  an  extract  from  a 
lengthy  deposition  Wigand  had  given 
in  late  November  about  his  experiences 


at  B&W.  The  deposition  would  be 
used  in  a  massive  lawsuit  filed  by  Mi- 
chael Moore,  the  attorney  general  of 
Mississippi,  against  the  major  Ameri- 
can tobacco  companies.  Wigand  is  a 
key  witness  in  a  singular  legal  at- 
tempt by  seven  states  to  seek  reimburse- 
ment of  Medicaid  expenses  resulting 
from  smoking-related  illnesses.  Each 
year,  425,000  Americans  die  of  such 
illnesses;  through  tax  money  that  goes 
to  Medicaid,  the  general  population 
pays  for  a  significant  portion  of  the 
billions  of  dollars  of  health  costs.  If 
the  state  attorneys  general,  with  an 
assist  from  Jeffrey  Wigand,  were  to 
succeed  in  proving  that  cigarettes  are 
addictive,  the  cigarette  companies  could 
be  forced  into  settling  the  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  plaintiff  actions  that 
would  result.  A  number  of  the  lawyers 
representing  the  states  are  working 
on  contingency— in  some  cases  hoping 
to  earn  fees  of  33  percent— and  recently 
The  Wall  Street  Journal  raised  the 
question  "Should  state  governments 
be  getting  into  bed  with  the  contin- 
gency fee  bar?" 

Wigand  is  tentatively  scheduled  to 
testify  late  this  spring.  In  his  deposi- 
tion, Wigand  had  talked  about  the 
dangers  of  a  number  of  additives  in 
cigarettes  and  pipe  tobacco,  the  ad- 
dictive properties  of  nicotine,  and 
the  alleged  attempts  at  B&W  to  cam- 
ouflage such  information.  The  Wall 
Street  Journal  rested  on  the  bed,  as 
did  a  copy  of  the  most  recent  death 
threat  Wigand  had  received:  "We  want 
you  to  know  that  we  have  not  for- 
gotten you  or  your  little  brats.  If  you 
think  we  are  going  to  let  you  ruin 
our  lives,  you  are  in  for  a  big  sur- 
prise! You  cannot  keep  the  bodyguards 
forever,  asshole." 

Wigand  looked  up  to  see  his  own 
face  on  TV.  Mike  Wallace  was  inter- 
viewing him. 

Wallace:  Last  August  we  talked  with  Jef- 
frey Wigand,  previously  the  $300,000  re- 
search chief  at  Brown  &  Williamson.  He 
is  the  highest-ranking  executive  ever  to 
reveal  what  goes  on  behind  the  scenes  at 
the  highest  level  of  a  tobacco  company. 

wigand:  We're  in  a  nicotine-delivery  busi- 
ness. 

Wallace:  And  that's  what  cigarettes  are  for? 

wigand:  Most  certainly.  It's  a  delivery  de- 
vice for  nicotine. 

The  telephone  rang.  It  was  Wigand's 
father,  and  Wigand  told  him  he  was 

173 


on  CBS.  There  was  no  pleasure  in  his 
voice.  Suddenly,  a  copy  of  the  death 
threat  I  had  just  read  was  on  the  screen. 
Wigand  shouted,  "How  the  hell  did 
they  get  that?  Don't  I  have  any  pri- 
vacy at  all?" 

That  night  we  had  dinner  at  the  re- 
volving restaurant  at  the  top  of  the 
Hyatt.  As  we  sat  down  at  the  table, 
Wigand  looked  out  the  window.  "I 
don't  believe  this,"  he  said.  "We  are 
directly  across  from  the  Brown  & 
Williamson  Tower."  I  could  see  fluo- 
rescent light  glowing  on  a  single  floor 
in  the  otherwise  darkened  building. 
"What  is  that?"  I  asked.  "That's  the 
18th  floor.  The  legal  department.  That 
is  where  they  all  are  working,  trying 
to  destroy  my  life." 

The  restaurant  revolves  slowly,  and 
each  time  the  B&W  Tower  came  into 
view,  Wigand  would  grimace.  "Look 
at  that,"  he  said.  "They  are  still 
there,  and  they  will  be  there  tomor- 
row and  they  will  be  there  on  Sun- 
day. .  .  .  You  can't  schmooze  with 
these  guys.  You  kick  them  in  the 
balls.  You  don't  maim  them.  Don't 
take  prisoners." 

The  anti-tobacco  forces  depict 
Jeffrey  Wigand  as  a  portrait 
in  courage,  a  Marlon  Bran- 
do taking  on  the  powers  in 
On  the  Waterfront.  The  pro- 
tobacco  lobbies  have  been 
equally  vociferous  in  their 
campaign  to  turn  Wigand  into 
a  demon,  a  Mark  Fuhrman  who  could 
cause  potentially  devastating  cases 
against  the  tobacco  industry  to  dis- 
solve over  issues  that  have  little  to 
do  with  the  dangers  of  smoking.  Ac- 
cording to  New  York  public-rela- 
tions man  John  Scanlon,  who  was 
hired  by  B&W's  law  firm  to  help  dis- 
credit Wigand,  "Wigand  is  a  habitu- 
al liar,  a  bad,  bad  guy."  It  was  Scan- 
Ion's  assignment  to  disseminate  a  wide 
range  of  damaging  charges  against 
Wigand,  such  as  shoplifting,  fraud, 
and  spousal  abuse.  Scanlon  himself, 
along  with  B&W,  is  now  the  subject 
of  an  unprecedented  Justice  Depart- 
ment investigation  for  possible  intim- 
idation of  a  witness.  For  First  Amend- 
ment specialist  James  Goodale,  the 
charges  and  countercharges  B&W 
has  attempted  to  level  against  Wigand 
represent  "the  most  important  press 
issue  since  the   Pentagon   Papers." 

174 

»m«imn8BiiiyiuiuiwiiiiiMW«i«»iiniBi 


Goodale,  who  represented  The  New 
York  Times  during  that  period,  said, 
"You  counteract  these  tactics  by  a 
courageous  press  and  big  balls." 

The  B&W  executives  appear  to  be 
convinced  that  they  can  break  Wigand 
by  a  steady  drumbeat  of  harassment 
and  litigation,  but  they  underestimate 
the  stubborn  nature  of  his  character 
and  the  depth  of  his  rage  at  what  he 
says  he  observed  as  their  employee.  A 
part  of  his  motivation  is  the  need  for 
personal  vindication:  Wigand  is  not 
proud  that  he  was  once  attracted  to 
the  situation  he  came  to  find  intoler- 
able. According  to  Wigand's  brother 
James,  a  Richmond,  Virginia,  endo- 
crinologist, "If  they  think  they  can  in- 
timidate and  threaten  him,  they  have 
picked  on  the  wrong  person!" 

It  has  become  a  dramatic  conven- 
tion to  project  onto  whistle-blowers 
our  need  for  heroism,  when  revenge 
and  anger  are  often  what  drive  them. 
There  is  a  powerful  temptation  to 
see  Jeffrey  Wigand  as  a  symbol:  the 
little  guy  against  the  cartel,  a  good 
man  caught  in  a  vise.  However,  Wi- 
gand defies  easy  categorization.  As  a 
personality,  he  is  prickly,  isolated, 
and  fragile  "peculiar  as  hell"  in 
Mike  Wallace's  phrase— but  there 
seems  to  be  little  doubt  about  the  qual- 
ity of  his  scientific  information. 
Wigand  is  the  most  sophisticated 
source  who  has  ever  come  forward 
from  the  tobacco  industry,  a  fact  which 
has  motivated  B&W  to  mount  a  multi- 
million-dollar campaign  to  destroy 
him.  National  reporters  arrive  in 
Louisville  daily  with  questions  for 
Wigand:  How  lethal  are  tobacco  ad- 
ditives such  as  coumarin?  What  did 
B&W  officials  know  and  when?  And 
what  does  it  feel  like.  Dr.  Wigand, 
to  lose  your  wife  and  children  and 
have  every  aspect  of  your  personal  life 
up  for  grabs  and  interpretation  in 
the  middle  of  a  smear? 

hen  Jeffrey  Wigand  tells 
the  story  of  his  life,  he 
does  not  begin  with  his 
childhood.  Instead,  he 
starts  with  the  events  sur- 
rounding his  forced  exit 
from  B&W  and  doesn't 
veer  too  far  from  that 
theme.  For  most  of  his  life,  Wigand 
defined  himself  as  a  man  of  science, 
but  a  scientist  in  the  ethos  of  middle 


f 


Je 


i« 


IB 


management,  "a  workaholic,"  and 
hard-driving  businessman.   He  is 
corporate  Everyman,  part  of  a  wot 
of  subsidiaries  and  spin-offs,  golf  | 
weekends  and  rides  on  the  compa 
plane.   He  uses  phrases  right  out 
the  lexicon  of  business— "game  plar 
"troubleshooter."  He  was  "director 
corporate  development  at  Pfizer,"  th< 
a  "general  manager  and  marked:1  ] 
director"  at  Union  Carbide  in  Japa 
Later,  as  a  senior  vice  president 
marketing  at  Technicon  Instrumen 
he  was  responsible  for  "a  state-c| 
the-art  plant"  that  "optimized"  t 
"manufacturing  facility"  for  biolo 
cal  compounds. 

The  son  of  a  mechanical  engine( 
Jeffrey  Wigand  grew  up  in  a  stri  * 
Catholic  home  in  the  Bronx,  the  o! 
est  of  five  children.  When  he  was' 
teenager,  the  family  moved  to  Plea  toi 
ant  Valley,  a  town  in  upstate  Nel 
York  near  Poughkeepsie.  Wigand's  1 
ther  stressed  independence  and  insi) 
ed  that  his  sons  help  build  their  ne  to 
house.  Wigand  had  to  control  his  angJ 
at  his  parents'  strictness.  Accordin  *J 
to  James,  their  mother  was  "a  ca  \ 
individual"  who  had  little  understands 
of  children.  "I  am  sure  my  father  wj 
kill  me  if  he  reads  this,"  James  sail  trui 
"but  I  felt  that  my  parents  believt  mi 
that  children  were  more  to  be  tokl  h 
ated.  I  always  had  the  feeling  how  mu« 
was  being  done  for  us,  how  much  \  * 
owed  for  this  opportunity!" 

A  gifted  chemistry  and  biology  st 
dent,  Jeff  flourished  in  the  quiet  <  |arb: 
mosphere  of  the  science  labs  and  hop*  id 
to  study  medicine.  As  a  freshman 
Dutchess  Community  College,  he  r 
cross-country  track  and  "worked  as>  Sail 
scrub  nurse  at  Vassar  Brothers  Ho  ma 
pital,"  James  recalled.  Then  he  sui  e 
denly  announced  to  his  parents  th 
he  was  dropping  out  of  college  aricrea 
joining  the  air  force.  "It  was  a  rebo  irro< 
lion  to  get  away,"  James  said.  "lV#m 
mother  just  about  freaked  out.  . 
But  if  you  make  someone  so  su 
pressed,  the  anger  kind  of  builds  up 

It  was  1961.  Wigand  was  sent  to  IV 
sawa,  an  American  air  base  in  Japa 
where  he  ran  an  operating  room, 
got  hooked  on  the  language  and  on  ma 
tial  arts,"  he  said.  He  volunteered 
an  English  teacher  at  a  Catholic  c 
phanage.  He  was  sent  briefly  to  Vi( 
nam,  he  told  me,  although  he  brusht 
off  the  experience:  "It  was  1963,  ar 


clii 


h 


feu 


.112!", 

Wij 
Sail 
Iwn 
bus 

inc.! 
itai 
tea 
h 
ton 


It  was  obvious  to  Wallace  and  Bergman  that  an 


nothing  was  going  on."  I  wondered  at 
he  defensive  tone  in  his  voice.  Later 
i&W  would  challenge  whether  he  had 
>een  in  Vietnam  at  all.  (According  to 
aie  investigator,  he  was  there  for  about 

month.) 

When  he  came  back  to  the  States, 
.e  wrote  a  master's  thesis  on  vitamin 
l12  and  later  earned  a  doctorate  in 
iochemistry  at  the  State  University 
f  New  York  at  Buffalo.  He  was  of- 
ered  a  $20,000 -a-year  job  with  the 
loehringer  Mannheim  Corporation,  a 
jerman  health-care  company.  In  1970, 
,t  a  judo  class,  Wigand  met  Linda, 
is  first  wife,  a  legal  secretary  from 
Jden,  New  York.  Seven  months  after 
hey  married,  in  1971,  Linda  devel- 
>ped  multiple  sclerosis.  At  the  time, 
Vigand  was  still  working  for  Boeh- 
inger  Mannheim  in  New  York,  but 
ie  moved  on  to  Pfizer  and  then  was 
ecruited  for  a  lucrative  position  at 
Jnion  Carbide.  He  was  to  form  a 
ubsidiary  to  test  medical  equipment 
i  clinical  trials  in  Japan.  He  was  34 
ears  old,  fluent  in  Japanese,  basking 
i  his  new  status. 

Wigand  is  proud  of  his  time  at  Union 
"arbide— "I  was  right  at  the  top,"  he 
aid— but  Linda  grew  progressively 
weaker.  "Jeff  searched  the  world  for 
pecialists,"  recalled  Conrad  Kotrady, 
Salt  Lake  City  doctor  who  has  known 
im  since  graduate  school.  "He  attacked 
lie  problem  as  if  it  were  an  assign- 
lent,  but  then  her  condition  became 
icreasingly  difficult  for  him."  Wigand 
urrowed  into  his  work,  withdrawing 
rom  the  agony  of  watching  his  wife 
isintegrate  physically.  In  1973  their 
aughter,  Gretchen,  was  born. 

Wigand  has  a  quality  his  brother 
ecalled  as  a  kind  of  personal  shut- 
own— an  ability  to  close  off  his  emo- 
ions  when  things  get  difficult.  As 
-inda's  condition  worsened,  Wigand 
istanced  himself  from  her  and  his  baby. 
I  really  did  not  have  a  marriage,"  he 
Did  me.  "If  I  said  I  didn't  play  around, 
would  be  lying.  Linda  came  back  to 
ie  States,  and  something  happened  in 


SILENT  PARTNER 

Lowell  Bergman, 
a  producer  for  Mike  Wallace 
on  60  Minutes,  came  upon 
Jeffrey  Wigand  in  connection 
with  a  tobacco  story 
involving  Philip  Morris 
and  soon  learned  of 
Wigand's  own  struggle  with 
Brown  &  Williamson. 

l_^m             • 

JE7* 

w               ^ 

■f     '  \ 

- 

k       \ 

JT 

«. 

1 

-, 

<•> 
© 

k 

W 

'  UsStk 

.  — ■ 

| 

" 

• 

i                  A 

A 

my  parents'  house.  She  went  home  to 
Buffalo."  Several  years  passed  before 
he  saw  her  or  his  daughter  again,  and 
eventually  the  marriage  unraveled. 
Linda's  parents  believed  that  Wigand 
had  abandoned  their  daughter,  one 
friend  recalled.  "I  thought  Linda  was 
dead,"  Wigand  said  quickly.  "That's 
what  a  friend  said."  Wigand  made  lit- 
tle attempt  to  communicate  with  his 
daughter.  It  is  Kotrady's  belief  that 
Wigand  did  not  want  to  upset  her  by 
taking  her  away  from  a  stable  home 
with  loving  grandparents. 

Wigand  met  his  second  wife,  Lu- 
cretia,  in  1981  at  a  sales  conference 
at  Ortho  Diagnostic  Systems,  a  sub- 
sidiary of  Johnson  &  Johnson,  where 
he  was  a  director  of  marketing.  She 
was  a  sales  rep.  He  was,  he  later  re- 
membered, attracted  to  her  cool  de- 
meanor and  willowy  good  looks.  Lu- 
cretia  had  spent  part  of  her  childhood 


in  Louisville,  the  daughter  of  two 
doctors  who  separated  when  she  was 
eight.  Lucretia's  mother,  at  one  time 
on  the  staff  of  the  National  Cancer 
Institute,  used  to  tease  Jeff  about 
Lucretia's  expensive  tastes.  They  mar- 
ried in  1986. 

Soon  Wigand  moved  on  to  a 
grander  position  as  a  senior 
vice  president  at  Technicon,  re- 
sponsible for  marketing  blood- 
testing  equipment.  Wigand  was 
filled  with  ideas,  but  he  was 
often  testy.  Bob  Karlson,  his 
mentor  at  Ortho,  recalled  pull- 
ing on  his  ear  at  meetings  to  tell  Wigand 
to  pipe  down  when  he  got  out  of  hand. 
"I  have  a  very  bad  problem— saying 
what's  on  my  mind,"  Wigand  told 
me.  "I  don't  take  too  much  crap  from 
anybody." 

He  was  a  perfectionist  who  kept  a 


175 


file  of  correspondence  with  businesses 
he  dealt  with  whose  products  were 
flawed.  In  one  instance,  he  returned 
some  hardware  to  a  catalogue  com- 
pany. In  another,  he  demanded  re- 
imbursement for  a  cleaning  bill  for 
water-damaged  items.  Later  this  file 
would  be  detailed  and  used  against 
him  as  evidence  in  B&W's  private 
investigation,  suggesting  that  he  had 
committed  fraud.  Wigand  had  a  ten- 
dency not  to  share  information,  even 
with  Lucretia.  On  the  day  before  her 
30th  birthday,  Wigand  called  her 
from  the  office:  "My  friends  and  I 
are  coming  home  to  celebrate."  Lat- 
er that  afternoon,  Lucretia  used  his 
car  to  go  for  a  pizza.  "All  of  his  of- 
fice was  in  the  backseat."  She  re- 
called asking.  "Is  there  something 
you  want  to  tell  me?"  As  it  hap- 
pened, some  of  Technicon's  upper- 
management  team,  including  Wigand, 
had  been  dismissed.  In  1987  he  was 


made  president  of  a  small  medical- 
equipment  company  called  Biosonics 
in  Fort  Washington,  Pennsylvania. 
Wigand  recalled  a  power  struggle  with 
the  owner  of  the  company,  who  re- 
cently wrote  an  article  in  Philadel- 
phia Forum  about  his  experiences 
with  Wigand.  accusing  him  of  having 
bullied  female  employees  and  in  one 
instance  of  having  shined  a  light  on 
his  subordinates  while  he  was  asking 
about  a  company  matter.  Wigand  de- 
nies both  charges. 

For  one  year  Jeff  Wigand  did 
consulting  work.  He  finally  decid- 
ed to  pursue  his  dream  of  being 
a  doctor,  but  Lucretia  convinced 
him  he  was  too  old.  Then  he  ap- 
proached a  headhunter,  who  asked 
if  he  would  consider  working  for 
Brown  &  Williamson,  the  tobac- 
co company.  Lucretia  was  puzzled 
by  the  offer:  "I  said,  'Why  do  they 
want  you?  You  know  nothing  about 


••• 

11.  .  J; 

i 

» 

-. 


■■:  - ' 


SUPERSLEITHS 


San  Francisco-based  private 

investigators  Jack  Palladino  and 

his  wife,  Sandra  Sutherland, 

were  hired  by  Wigand's  lawyer 

Richard  Scruggs  to  mount  a 

counterattack  to  the  P.R.  campaign 

being  waged  against  Wigand. 

"This  is  a  war,"  declared  Palladino. 


tobacco.   You  had— what?— 17  yet 
of  health  care.'  It  did  not  make  sens* 

From  his  first  meetings  with  Al 
Heard,  the  head  of  R&D  for  bat  1 
dustries  (formerly  British  Americ 
Tobacco),  the  conglomerate  with 
billion  in  annual  profits  that  ow 
B&W,  Wigand  shut  his  eyes  and 
nored    the    Faustian    arrangemei 
Heard  said  he  wanted  to  develop 
new  cigarette  to  compete  with  Pi 
mier,  a  product  made  by  the  R. 
Reynolds  Tobacco  Company  (RJ1 
which  had  little  tar.  The  appeal  w 
seductive  for  a  man  who  prided  hii 
self  on  his  research  skills,  and  \* 
gand's  title  would  be  impressive:  hei 
of  R&D.  He  would  soon  be  paid  moi 
than  he  had  ever  earned  in  his  life; 
$300,000  a  year.  His  department  wou 
have  a  budget  of  more  than  $30  mi  \ 
lion  and  a  staff  of  243.  Shortly  aft 
he  began  the  interviews,  Wigand  toe  » 
up  smoking.   He  later  said,   "I  w 
buying  the  routine.  I  wanted  to  ui  i 
derstand  the  science  of  how  it  macjj 
you  feel." 

From  the  beginning,  Lucretia  eo  i 
couraged  the  move  to  Louisville.  Sini  i 
her  parents'  divorce,  her  father  ha 
remarried  a  couple  of  times.  Aloi  I 
with  his  medical  practice,  he  owneS  here 
tobacco  land.  A  move  back  to  Loui  i 
ville  with  Wigand  in  an  importas 
position  in  that  industry  would  pro 
ably  impress  Lucretia's  father  ar  oi 
might  draw  the  family  closer  toget 
er.  Besides,  she  had  just  had  a  bab  fe 
and  she  believed  that  life  in  Louisvil 
would  be  a  boon  for  a  child.  "I  thougW 
if  I  made  big  bucks  she  would  t 
happy,"  Wigand  told  me. 

When  Wigand  told  his  brother  r 
was  going  to  work  for  a  tobacco  co: 
glomerate.  James  said,  "You've  g( 
to  be  kidding."  But  Wigand  was  o 
timistic.  "I  thought  I  would  ha\ 
an  opportunity  to  make  a  diffe 
ence  and  work  on  a  safer  cigarett  il 
I  talked  to  a  lot  of  my  friends  froi 


iert 


lera 


m 


IHtl 


tees 


R) 


*S1  FSTil  IIIKiiTilMI    UMiFsTrrirsitv 


Le  Nick  and  Nor; 


Charles  of  modern  criminal  investigation. 


Hie 

I, 


College.  They  said,  'You  know,  you're 
never  going  to  be  able  to  come  back. 
hfou  can't  go  from  tobacco  back  into 
health  care.'" 

II 

The  Firm 

From  Wigand's  first  days  at  B&W, 
it  was  apparent  to  him  that  there 
was  a  contradiction  in  his  situa- 
tion. On  his  good  days  he  believed 
he  was  helping  the  world.  On 
the  other  days  he  was  a  guy  with 
a  family  who  earned  a  large  salary. 
He  had  a  feisty,  urban,  go-getter 
personality  in  an  unusual  city;  Louis- 
wile  was  a  Velveeta  town,  clannish  and 
(sophisticated,  once  ruled  by  old  fami- 
lies such  as  the  Bingham  publishing 
dynasty.  At  B&W.  Wigand's  intensity 
and  uncongenial  personality  grated  on 
Riany  of  his  southern  colleagues.  Wigand 
believed  that  he  was  there  to  shake  up 
lie  ossified  atmosphere.  Three  months 
bfter  he  was  hired,  RJR  withdrew  Pre- 
mier from  the  market  because  the  taste 
Was  unpleasant,  acrid,  and  synthetic.  Had 
Wigand  been  shrewder,  he  might  have 
thought  that  he  was  now  in  a  trap. 
[There  was  no  real  reason  for  a  non- 
tobacco  man  to  remain  at  the  company. 
But  he  attempted  to  keep  his  contrari- 
an nature  under  wraps.  He  went  to 
company  parties,  and  Lucretia  volun- 
teered to  help  at  the  Hard  Scruffle 
Steeplechase,  a  charity  event.  It  is  con- 
ceivable that  B&W  had  sized  Wigand 
lip  psychologically.  He  surely  appeared 
to  be  highly  ambitious,  money-hungry. 
a  potential  captive  to  the  firm. 

In  Louisville,  the  Wigands  bought 
a  two-story  red  brick  house  in  a  pleas- 
ant suburb.  There  was  an  allee  of 
fcrees  in  the  middle  of  the  road,  giv- 
ing a  sense  of  affluence.  Wigand  had 
two  offices  at  B&W.  one  at  the  R&D 
laboratory  and  one  in  the  office  tow- 
er. When  he  toured  the  lab  for  the 
first  time,  he  was  startled,  he  told  me. 
to  observe  how  antiquated  it  seemed. 
"The  place  looked  like  a  high-school 
chemistry  lab  from  the  1950s  with  all 
sorts  of  old-fashioned  smoking  ma- 
chines. There  was  no  fundamental  sci- 
ence being  done."  There  was  neither 
a  toxicologist  nor  a  physicist  on  staff. 
a  fact  which  Wigand  found  very  un- 
settling. How.  he  thought,  could  you 
be  serious  about  studying  the  health 


aspects  of  tobacco  or  fire  safety  with- 
out the  proper  experts?  According  to 
documents  that  later  wound  up  in  the 
University  of  California  at  San  Fran- 
cisco library,  even  in  the  1960s  research 
had  been  done  for  B&W  which  tobacco 
activists  say  proved  that  cigarettes  were 
addictive  and  caused  cancer.  However, 
Wigand  says  he  did  not  learn  of  those 
studies  until  he  left  the  company. 

Shortly  after  Wigand  was  hired,  he 
was  sent  to  an  orientation  session  on 
tobacco-litigation  matters  at  Shook, 
Hardy  &  Bacon,  a  Kansas  City  law 
firm  that  specializes  in  defending  law- 
suits for  the  industry.  The  firm  is  re- 
puted to  have  its  own  in -house  scientists 
and  tobacco  researchers.  Shook.  Hardy 
&  Bacon  and  B&W  lawyers  were  aware 
of  the  dangers  that  the  company's  re- 
search could  pose  in  a  lawsuit.  B&W 
lawyers  had  devised  an  ingenious  method 
for  avoiding  discovery  of  sensitive  in- 
formation: have  it  "shipped  offshore"- 
a  practice  one  attorney  referred  to  as 
"document  management."  It  was  the  sug- 
gestion of  Kendrick  Wells,  an  attorney 
in  B&W's  legal  department,  that  staff 
be  told  that  this  effort  was  "to  remove 
deadwood,"  and  that  no  one  "should 
make  any  notes,  memos  or  lists."  Wigand 
later  testified  that  another  law  firm, 
Covington  &  Burling,  sometimes  edit- 
ed scientific  information  on  additives. 


Nine  months  after  Wigand  went 
to  work,  he  attended  a  meet- 
ing of  bat  scientists  in  Van- 
couver, British  Columbia.  The 
top  R&D  executives  from  bat's 
worldwide  tobacco  subsidiaries 
were  there  to  discuss  health  mat- 
ters and  the  possibility  of  a  nico- 
tine substitute.  There  was  a  feeling  of 
excitement  among  the  scientists  that 
they  could  reduce  health  risks  for  smok- 
ers. By  then  Wigand  had  grown  used 
to  the  euphemisms  of  his  new  indus- 
try. He  understood  that  "increased  bi- 
ological activity"  in  reports  was  code 
for  cancer  and  other  diseases.  At  the 
meeting.  Wigand  would  later  testify, 
roughly  15  pages  of  minutes  were  tak- 
en by  Ray  Thornton,  a  British  scien- 
tist. A  copy  was  sent  to  Wigand.  who 
circulated  copies  to  upper  management. 
Soon  after  that.  Wigand  says,  he 
was  called  into  Kendrick  Wells's  of- 
fice and  asked  to  sign  off  on  a  3-page 
synopsis  of  the  minutes— a  reduction 
of  about   12  pages.  In  a  recent  depo- 


sition Wells  testified  that  Raymond 
Pritchard,  the  then  C.E.O.  of  the  com- 
pany, had  assigned  Wigand  to  pro- 
duce a  revised  set  of  minutes. 

Within  the  industry,  bat  is  known 
as  "the  tough  guy"  for  its  ferocious 
litigation  strategy.  As  a  foreign  corpo- 
ration it  has  never  enjoyed  quite  as 
much  political  influence  as  the  Amer- 
ican tobacco  companies,  which  donate 
vast  sums  of  money  to  organizations 
as  diverse  as  the  African-American 
political  caucuses,  the  Whitney  Muse- 
um, and  the  political-action  commit- 
tees of  dozens  of  candidates,  especially 
Bob  Dole.  In  the  late  1970s  the  Fed- 
eral Trade  Commission  (FTC.)  in- 
vestigated the  advertising  practices  of 
all  the  tobacco  companies.  In  a  non- 
public report  later  read  at  a  congres- 
sional-committee meeting,  B&W's 
Viceroy  cigarette  was  mentioned  for  a 
proposed  test-marketing  campaign  that 
appeared  to  target  minors.  Several  years 
later,  a  CBS  anchorman  in  Chicago, 
Walter  Jacobson,  broadcast  a  segment 
about  the  report.  B&W  sued  CBS, 
which  paid  a  $3  million  judgment 
after  the  case  went  all  the  way  to  the 
Supreme  Court.  B&W  also  clashed  with 
RJR  and  Philip  Morris  over  Barclay 
cigarettes  and  a  false-advertising  charge 
brought  by  the  FTC.  In  1987,  B&W 
withdrew  from  the  Tobacco  Institute, 
an  American  tobacco  lobbying  group, 
for  several  years. 

Although  B&W  employed  500  peo- 
ple in  Louisville,  Wigand  chafed  at 
the  bunker  mentality.  "It  was  an  in- 
cestuous society,"  he  said.  "Wherever 
you  went— to  dinners,  to  parties— the 
B&W  people  all  stayed  together.  They 
never  mixed."  Many  of  the  executives 
smoked,  although  in  private  they  often 
talked  about  the  risks.  "Their  whole 
corporate  philosophy  was  'Shit  flows 
downhill.'  You  get  paid  very  well. 
You  have  lots  of  nice  benefits."  Later 
he  recalled,  "I  didn't  trust  anyone  at 
B&W.  I  was  a  different  animal." 

Wigand  felt  that  the  scientific  data 
at  B&W  was  Stone  Age.  as  he  later 
told  a  friend.  He  brought  new  com- 
puters into  the  R&D  facility  and  hired 
a  physicist  and  a  toxicologist.  He 
worked  on  reverse  engineering  on  Marl- 
boros.  attempting  to  discern  their 
unique  properties;  he  studied  fire  safe- 
ty and  ignition  propensity. 

After  Vancouver.  Wigand  continued 
to  push  for  more  information.  He  be- 


177 


gan  to  hear  mysterious  names  at  com- 
pany dinners— "Ariel"  and  "Hippo." 
"I  did  not  drink  at  all  then— only 
Diet  Pepsi  and  I  would  ask,  'What  is 
that?"  And  suddenly  people  would  clam 
up."  As  the  head  of  R&D  at  B&W, 
he  should  logically  have  been  aware 
of  every  aspect  of  the  company's  re- 
search. "There  were  essentially  two 
research-and-development  departments. 
They  did  the  work  on  nicotine  over- 
seas." Wigand  says  he  did  not  dis- 
cover that  Ariel  and  Hippo  were 
research  studies  on  health-related  issues 
conducted  in  the  1970s  at  bat  in 
Switzerland  until  he  read  thousands 
of  pages  of  documents  taken  from  a 
law  firm  in  downtown  Louisville  by  a 
concerned  paralegal  named  Merrell 
Williams,  a  Faulknerian  personality 
with  a  doctorate  in  drama.  "My  per- 
spective was  like  night  and  day,"  Wi- 
gand told  me.  "It  was  like  being  aware 
and  not  being  aware.  You  look  back 
on  things  that  happened  when  you  were 
present  and  you  say,  'Hell,  they  knew 
about  that  all  along."' 

Wigand  began  to  keep  an  extensive 
scientific  diary,  both  in  his  computer 
and  in  a  red  leather  book.  "I  kept  it 
day  by  day.  month  by  month.  I  saw 
two  faces,  the  outside  face  and  the  in- 
side face.  It  bothered  me.  I  didn't  know 
the  diary  was  going  to  be  valuable." 
In  one  early  entry,  Wigand  recalled, 
he  recorded  a  promise  made  to  him 
that  he  would  be  able  to  hire  "a  sci- 
entific and  medical  advisory  commit- 
tee." "Then,  all  of  a  sudden— poof!— 
it's  gone." 

Wigand's  scientific  ethics  had  been 
shaped  during  his  years  working  for 
Johnson  &  Johnson;  he  admired  par- 
ticularly the  stringent  standards  en- 
forced by  C.E.O.  James  Burke  during 
the  recall  of  shipments  of  Tylenol  af- 
ter a  poisoning  scare  in  1982.  At 
first  he  believed  that  Ray  Pritchard 
was  a  man  of  honor  like  Burke.  At 
lunch  from  time  to  time,  he  com- 
plained in  private  to  Pritchard  about 
Thomas  Sandefur,  then  the  company 
president.  Wigand  had  come  to  be- 
lieve that  his  safe-cigarette  project  was 
being  canceled.  He  told  60  Minutes 
that  he  had  gone  to  ask  Sandefur  about 
it  and  that  Sandefur  had  been  harsh: 
"I  don't  want  to  hear  any  more  dis- 
cussion about  a  safer  cigarette.  .  .  .  We 
pursue  a  safer  cigarette,  it  would  put 
us  at  extreme  exposure  with  every  oth- 

178 


er  product."  (On  60  Minutes,  B&W 
said  this  was  false.) 

Wigand  made  no  secret  of  his  lack 
of  respect  for  Sandefur:  "I  wouldn't 
consider  them  all  intellectual  titans. 
Sandefur  used  to  beat  on  me  for  us- 
ing big  words.  I  never  found  anybody 
as  stupid  as  Sandefur  in  terms  of  his 
ability  to  read  or  communicate.  .  .  . 
In  terms  of  his  understanding  some- 
thing and  his  intellectual  capacity, 
Sandefur  was  just  like  a  farm  boy." 

According  to  Wigand,  Sandefur  had 
a  particular  interest  in  B&W's  manu- 
facture of  snuff.  There  were  problems 
with  bacterial  fermentation,  Wigand 
told  me.  "They  could  never  get  it  fer- 
mented correctly.  They  could  not  get 
a  consistent  taste  or  particle  size. 
They  could  not  understand  the  tactil- 
ity  of  soil  bacteria  and  how  it  worked 
on  the  natural  flora.  What  was  the  ef- 
fect of  ammonia  to  flora?  Most  moist 
snuff  deteriorates  after  packaging.  If 
you  could  find  a  way  to  sterilize  it, 
you  would  slow  up  bacterial  fermen- 
tation and  have  a  safer  product.  No 
one  had  done  this  for  four  years." 

Snuff  was  a  critical  product  for  B&W, 
Wigand  said,  because  it  is  "start-up  stuff 
for  kids.  ...  It  was  Sandefur's  baby. 
You  have  to  look  at  the  age  some- 
body starts  smoking.  If  you  don't  get 
them  before  they  are  18  or  20,  you 
never  get  them."  (Thomas  Sandefur 
declined  to  make  any  comment  for 
this  article.) 

According  to  The  Journal  of  the 
American  Medical  Association, 
3  million  Americans  under  the 
age  of  18  consume  one  billion 
packs  of  cigarettes  and  26  mil- 
lion containers  of  snuff  every 
year.  For  a  cigarette  company, 
the  potential  for  profits  from 
these  sales— illegal  in  all  50  states— is 
immense,  more  than  $200  million  a  year. 
Wigand  came  to  feel  increasingly 
that  there  was  "no  sense  of  responsi- 
bility" on  the  subject  of  teenagers 
and  smoking.  He  was  disturbed  by  a 
report  that  on  the  average  children 
begin  to  smoke  at  14.  He  was  surprised, 
he  told  me,  by  Sandefur's  lack  of  in- 
terest in  such  matters,  and  he  grew 
visibly  testy.  "I  used  to  come  home 
tied  in  a  knot.  My  kids  would  say  to 
me,  'Hey,  Daddy,  do  you  kill  people?' 
I  didn't  like  some  of  the  things  I  saw. 
I  felt  uncomfortable.  I  felt  dirty. 


"The  last  year  and  a  half  I  was  theil 
Brown  &  Williamson  used  to  keep  rj 
isolated.  How  did  they  know  I  wl 
trouble?  I  was  asking  some  pretty  dj 
ficult  questions:  How  come  there  wl 
no  research  file?  .  .  .  When  they  drinl 
they  talk.  I  know  a  lot.  My  diary  wl 
reflect  those  meetings.  I  was  not  Thorn  | 
Sandefur's  fair-haired  boy." 

He  withdrew  into  a  stolid  isolatio' 
Lucretia  knew  something  was  wron 
she  later  told  me.  When  she  ask<i 
him  how  things  were  going  at  the  c 
fice,  he  would  say,   "Fine."   If  sll 
pressed  him,  he  would  answer,  "Thalijli 
work,  and  I  leave  that  at  the  office  I: 
His  need  to  control  his  emotions  caust  tan 
him  frequently  to  lose  his  temper       m 
home,  Lucretia  remembered. 

There  was  also  a  major  addition 
problem  at  home,  a  hole  in  the  ceu  u 
ter  of  his  life.   His  older  daught   ;» 
with  Lucretia  had  serious  medical  pro.    n 
lems.  According  to  Wigand,  "Rach1  tppk 
was  not  diagnosed  correctly  from  birt 
Both  specialists  and  general  praci  r 
tioners,  including  Lucretia's  fathe 
unequivocally  stated  that  Rachel  d. 
not  have  any  problem,  even  after  su. 
stantive  testing.  I  finally  sought  out! 
respected  adult  urologist  who  mac 
the  diagnosis  of  spina  bifida.  This  r 
quired  spinal  surgery."  In  a  rage,  W 
gand  threatened  to  sue  the  doctors  wrS 
had  not  diagnosed  her  earlier.  It  i 
Wigand's  opinion  that  his  father-in* 
law  never  forgave  him.  (Neither  LJ 
cretia  nor  her  father  would  commen 
on  this  subject.) 

At  work  he  grew  increasingly  vi 
cal.  After  1991,  B&W's  evaluation 
of  him  contained  new  corporate  e.i 
phemisms.  Wigand  had  "a  difficult 
in  communication."  He  was  becori 
ing,  as  he  later  described  it,  a  proiJ 
lem  for  Sandefur  by  sounding  off  ; 
meetings.  For  Wigand,  the  critic: 
moment  occurred  when  he  read  a  rk 
port  from  the  National  Toxicology  Pr<j  !'[,, 
gram.  The  subject  was  coumarin,  a  || 
additive  that  had  been  shown  to  ha\  ni 
a  carcinogenic  property  which  cause 
tumors  in  rats  and  mice.  The  mak 
up  of  coumarin  was  close  to  that  ( 
a  compound  found  in  rat  poison,  bi 
until  1992  no  one  understood  th 
possible  dangers.  The  new  report  di 
scribed  its  carcinogenic  effect.  Whe 
Wigand  read  this  in  late  1992,  h 
first  reaction  was  "We  have  got  t 
get  this  stuff  out  of  the  pipe  toba> 


nmnwiminirM 


I 

pt 

Id! 

Rl 

k 
I 


In 


The  relationship  between  CBS  and  Laurence 

Tischs  tobacco  company,  Lorillard, 
became  a  vexing  problem  for  the  news  division. 


:o."  One  of  B&W's  products  was  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh.  Wigand  told  60  Min- 
ites  that  when  he  went  to  a  meeting 
with  Sandefur,  Sandefur  told  him 
ihat  removing  it  would  impact  sales. 
Wigand  got  the  impression  that  Sande- 
fur would  do  nothing  immediately  to 
liter  the  product,  so  he  sought  out 
us  toxicologist,  Scott  Appleton.  Wi- 
gand says  he  asked  him  to  write  a 
memo  backing  him  up,  but  Appleton 
•efused,  perhaps  afraid  for  his  job. 
'Appleton  declined  to  comment.) 

Driven  by  anger  now,  Wigand 
says,  he  determined  to  examine 
what  happens  when  other  ad- 
ditives are  burned.  He  focused 
on  glycerol,  an  additive  used 
to  keep  the  tobacco  in  ciga- 
rettes moist.  He  was  involved 
in  discussions  about  the  nico- 
tine patch  and  studied  a  genetically 
jngineered,  high-nicotine  Brazilian  to- 
jacco  called  Y-l. 

Wigand  also  began  attending  meet- 
ngs  of  a  commission  on  fire  safety  in 
agarettes  in  Washington.  He  observed 
Andrew  McGuire,  an  expert  on  burn 
:rauma  from  San  Francisco,  who  had 
tfon  a  MacArthur  grant  following 
lis  campaign  for  fire-retardant  clotti- 
ng for  children.  The  commission 
net  approximately  40  times  and  had 
Four  R&D  scientists  from  tobacco 
:ompanies  as  members,  including 
Mexander  W.  Spears,  the  future  head 
Df  Lorillard.  As  far  as  McGuire  knew, 
B&W  was  not  represented.  "I  would 
look  out  and  I  would  see  all  these 
men  in  suits  listening  to  our  discus- 
sions. I  assumed  that  they  were  tobacco- 
:ompany  lawyers,  monitoring  what  we 
were  doing,"  McGuire  said.  Wigand 
aad  several  conversations  about  his 
jxperiments  with  additives  with  other 
tobacco  men  attending  the  meetings, 
•nit  he  never  met  McGuire. 

In  the  summer  of  1992,  Earl  Kohn- 
lorst,  a  senior  executive  at  B&W,  called 


Wigand  into  his  office.  Wigand  con- 
sidered him  a  friend,  and  had  urged 
him  to  stop  smoking— as  Wigand  had. 
According  to  a  memo  Kohnhorst  lat- 
er wrote,  the  meeting  was  not  friend- 
ly. Wigand  apparently  learned  he  was 
on  notice,  and  Kohnhorst  is  said  to 
have  implied  that  he  was  difficult  to 
work  with  and  was  talking  too  much. 
Wigand  says  that  his  anger  made  it 
impossible  for  him  to  censor  himself; 
he  had  come  to  believe  his  worth  as 
a  scientist  was  being  violated  by  his 
association  with  the  tobacco  compa- 
ny. He  also  believed  that  the  other 
scientists  in  the  company  would  share 
his  values.  Wigand  was  determined  to 
be  on  the  record  with  his  research 
on  additives.  He  recalled  writing  a 
memo  for  the  files  on  the  dangers  of 
coumarin.  He  felt,  he  later  said,  that 
he  was  being  diligent.  In  January  1993, 
it  was  announced  that  Thomas  Sande- 
fur, Wigand's  nemesis,  had  been  named 
C.E.O.  of  B&W.  On  March  24,  Wigand 
was  fired  and  escorted  from  the  build- 
ing. He  has  testified  that  B&W  nev- 
er returned  his  scientific  diary. 

Ill 

The  Journalist  and 
the  Whistle-Blower 

In  the  early  spring  of  1993,  Lowell 
Bergman,  an  award-winning  news 
producer  at  60  Minutes,  found  a 
crate  of  papers  on  the  front  steps 
of  his  house  in  Berkeley,  Califor- 
nia. Bergman's  specialty  at  CBS  was 
investigative  reporting;  he  possessed 
a  Rolodex  of  peerless  snitches,  C.I.A. 
operatives,  and  corporate  informants. 
The  grandson  of  one  of  the  first  female 
leaders  of  the  International  Ladies 
Garment  Workers  Union,  Bergman  had 
a  bemused,  compassionate  nature.  He 
was  close  to  50  and  had  come  to  under- 
stand that  life  was  a  series  of  murky 


compromises.  At  the  University  of  Cal- 
ifornia at  San  Diego,  he  had  studied 
with  the  political  philosopher  Herbert 
Marcuse  and  lived  in  a  commune. 
Bergman's  wife,  Sharon  Tiller,  was  a 
Frontline  producer,  and  they  had  five 
grown  sons  between  them. 

Bergman  often  received  anonymous 
letters  and  sealed  court  documents  in 
his  mailbox;  it  did  not  surprise  him  in 
the  least,  he  told  me,  to  find  the  box 
of  papers  on  his  porch.  As  always, 
Bergman  was  developing  several  pieces 
for  Mike  Wallace,  the  correspondent 
he  worked  with  almost  exclusively.  They 
were  close  friends  and  confidants,  but 
they  argued  ferociously  and  intimate- 
ly, like  a  father  and  son.  "Lowell  can 
drive  me  crazy,"  Wallace  told  me. 
"Lowell  would  like  to  be  the  produc- 
er, the  reporter,  the  correspondent,  and 
the  head  of  CBS  News."  Screaming 
messages  and  six  a.m.  phone  calls 
were  their  standard  operating  tech- 
niques, but  they  shared  a  passion  for 
corporate  intrigue,  and  together  had 
helped  break  the  Iraq-gate  bank  scan- 
dal in  1992  and  examine  the  accusa- 
tions of  child  abuse  at  the  McMartin 
Pre-School  in  Los  Angeles  in  1986. 
Shortly  after  the  mysterious  papers 
appeared  on  his  steps,  Bergman  won 
a  Peabody  Award  for  a  program  on 
cocaine  trafficking  in  the  C.I.A. 

At  60  Minutes,  the  on -air  personal- 
ities were  involved  in  six  or  seven  sto- 
ries at  the  same  time  and  took  a 
deserved  share  of  the  credit  for  the 
show's  singular  productions,  but  the 
staff  was  well  aware  that  the  produc- 
ers actually  did  the  backbreaking  re- 
porting. In  most  cases,  the  producers 
had  complete  freedom  to  develop  sto- 
ries, and  it  was  they,  not  the  corre- 
spondents, who  were  in  hotel  rooms 
in  Third  World  countries  at  all  hours 
bringing  along  reluctant  sources.  Lat- 
er,  the  correspondents   stepped  in. 

179 


Only  rarely  did  correspondents  know 
the  explicit  details  of  stories  other  teams 
were  developing. 

When  Bergman  received  the  box  of 
papers,  he  took  a  look  at  the  hundreds 
of  pages  of  material.  "They  were  a  sham- 
bles," he  recalled,  "but  clearly  from  a 
nonpublic  file."  The  papers  were  very 
technical  and  came  from  the  Philip  Mor- 
ris company.  The  phrase  "ignition  pro- 
pensity" was  repeated  often  in  them. 
"I  had  never  heard  that  phrase  be- 
fore," Bergman  said.  He  called  his  friend 
Andrew  McGuire,  the  only  person  he 
knew  who  had  ever  studied  tobacco 
and  fire.  "Do  you  know  anyone  who 
can  make  sense  of  these  papers  for  me?" 
Bergman  asked.  "I  might  have  just  the 
guy,"  McGuire  said. 

After  being  fired  by  B&W,  Jef- 
frey Wigand  remained  opti- 
mistic for  some  time,  Lucretia 
recalled.  He  came  close  to  find- 
ing a  lucrative  job  through  a 
headhunter  in  Chicago.  He 
gave  as  references  Alan  Heard 
and  Ray  Pritchard.  He  was 
surprised  not  to  be  hired  immediately 
by  another  corporation,  and  soon  he 
began  to  worry.  He  reportedly  groused 
about  his  severance  package  to  a  friend 
at  B&W,  who  repeated  his  remarks  to 
his  former  boss.  Several  months  later, 
Wigand  learned  that  B&W  was  suing 
him  for  breach  of  contract.  Accord- 
ing to  the  suit,  his  medical  benefits 
would  be  taken  from  him,  a  display- 
of  corporate  hardball  which  would 
subsequently  rebound.  "If  Brown  & 
Williamson  had  just  left  me  alone.  I 
probably  would  have  gone  away.  'I  would 
have  gotten  a  new  job,"  Wigand  said. 
He  reluctantly  signed  an  onerous, 
lifelong  confidentiality  agreement  so 
stringent  that  he  could  be  in  viola- 
tion if  he  discussed  anything  about 
the  corporation.  Wigand  felt  trapped, 
and  he  did  not  know  what  to  do. 

When  I  spoke  with  Lucretia  Wigand 
in  Louisville,  she  used  an  unusual 
phrase,  "skeletons  in  the  closet,"  to 
describe  her  fear  of  what  would  hap- 
pen if  Jeff  went  public  with  his  ex- 
periences at  B&W.  "What  do  you 
mean,  'skeletons  in  the  closet'?"  I 
asked.  In  repose,  Lucretia  is  elegant 
and  steely.  She  looked  at  her  divorce 
lawyer,  Steven  Kriegshaber,  who  shook 
his  head  as  if  to  warn  her  not  to 
speak.  "The  so-called  spousal  abuse— 

180 


you  were  worried  about  that?"  I  asked. 
"Sure,"  she  said  softly. 

Alcohol  and  rage  are  at  the  center 
of  what  happened  on  a  bad  night  in 
the  Wigand  marriage  in  October  1994. 
The  tension  in  the  family  had  become 
overwhelming  while  Wigand  was  ne- 
gotiating the  punitive  confidentiality 
agreement.  Since  Rachel  had  been  di- 
agnosed with  spina  bifida,  the  mar- 
riage had  suffered  enormous  strain.  "I 
felt  that  during  Lucretia's  pregnancy 
with  Rachel  she  somewhat  overabused 
alcohol,"  Wigand  said.  "She  drinks  quite 
heavily."  (Lucretia  denies  this.)  Wigand 
himself  had  at  one  time  been  a  drinker, 
but  he  had  stopped  when  he  felt  out 
of  control.  After  he  was  fired,  he  told 
me,  it  was  not  surprising  that  he  be- 
gan to  drink  again.  Lucretia,  he  said, 
was  "stunned"  when  she  heard  that  he 
had  once  again  lost  a  job.  She  raged 
that  he  had  not  told  even  her  of  his 
growing  unhappiness  in  the  company. 
She  was  frightened  that  he  would  lose 
any  claim  to  their  medical  package. 

Wigand  recalled  her  mood  as  some- 
times dismissive  and  unsympathetic. 
There  are  contradictory  versions  of 
the  evening.  According  to  Wigand,  Lu- 
cretia "hit  me  in  the  back  with  a  wood- 
en coat  hanger  and  ran  upstairs  into 
the  bedroom."  Furious,  he  chased 
her  and  then  called  the  police.  Ac- 
cording to  Lucretia,  "Because  of  the 
amount  he  drank,  he  does  not  re- 
member most  of  the  evening.  ...  I 
tried  to  leave.  He  took  my  keys  away 
and  was  grabbing  me.  ...  I  picked 
up  the  phone  to  dial  91 1.  He  ripped 
the  cord  out  of  the  wall.  He  smashed 
my  nose  with  the  palm  of  his  hand. 
The  kids  were  screaming,  I  was  scream- 
ing. I  ran  down  the  hall  and  picked 
up  another  phone  and  dialed  911. 
Jeff  left  the  house  before  the  police 
arrived."  Whatever  happened  that 
night,  Lucretia  and  Jeffrey  Wigand 
both  blame  B&W  for  placing  an  un- 
bearable strain  on  their  marriage, 
and  say  that  this  episode  played  no 
part  in  their  later  divorce.  Soon  af- 
ter, according  to  a  lawyer  close  to 
the  case,  Wigand  became  concerned 
enough  about  his  drinking  that  he 
checked  into  a  clinic  for  four  days 
of  evaluation— which  would  later,  in 
a  500 -page  dossier  of  allegations  about 
his  character,  be  reported  as  two  weeks 
of  hospitalization  for  treatment  for 
anger. 


Through  an  intermediary  in  j 
government,  Wigand  read- 
out tentatively  to  Andrew  Is 
Guire,  whom  he  had  obser\ 
in  Washington.  McGuire  \ 
a  phone  call:  would  he  spe 
to  a  former  R&D  executb 
McGuire  was  intrigued.  A 
bacco-industry  witness  could  be 
valuable  to  him,  since  he  was  t 
pressing  Congress  to  regulate  fire  safe 
"I  don't  know  if  this  guy  is  for  rea 
the  government  official  told  McGui 
"but  here  is  his  home  number 
him."  Wigand's  voice  on  the  phone  w 
so  strained  and  wary  that  McGu 
wondered  if  he  might  not  be  a  tobacc 
industry  spy.  Nevertheless,  he  pass 
his  name  along  to  Lowell  Bergrm 
For  weeks  Bergman  tried  to  get  \ 
gand  on  the  telephone.  Each  timei 
woman  answered,  and  she  would  t 
him,  "He  is  not  home."  Finally  she  sa; 
"He  doesn't  want  to  talk  to  yoi 
Bergman  had  become  fascinated 
the  court  papers  involving  Philip  Mi 
ris,  and  was  convinced  he  needed  tl 
particular  chemist  to  make  sense 
them.  He  wanted  a  scientist,  not 
anti-tobacco  advocate.  In  Februa 
1994,  he  decided  to  go  to  Louisvil 
"I  did  the  old  'call  him  at  midnig] 
maneuver.  He  answered  the  pho 
and  I  said,  'If  you  are  curious  to  me 
me,  I'll  be  sitting  in  the  lobby  at  t 
Seelbach  Hotel  tomorrow  at  11  a.m.i 
At  11  a.m.  a  gray-haired  man  in 
windbreaker  appeared  and  said,  "A 
you  Lowell?"  Bergman  looked  up 
see  a  portrait  of  middle-aged  anxie 
"I  said  to  him,  'Let's  go  have  a  coffee. 
It  was  the  beginning  of  an  extrac 
dinary  relationship.  Bergman's  pre 
ence  in  Wigand's  life  would  eventu; 
ly  inspire  him  to  come  forward  as 
whistle-blower.  For  Bergman,  Wigai 
would  become  a  source  who  needc 
unusual  protection  and  hand-holding 
a  fact  which  would  ultimately  jeope 
dize  his  position  at  CBS.  "As  a  perso 
the  guy  I  met  had  been  raped  and  1 
olated,"  Bergman  said.  Wigand  to 
Bergman  that  he  was  suffering  a  "moi 
crisis."  He  said  that  he  had  alwa 
considered  himself  a  scientist,  and  1 
called  the  type  of  research  that  we 
on  at  B&W  "a  display  of  craft." 

"'O.K.,'"  Bergman  recalled  sayii 
after  their  first  day  together,  "  'you  car 
talk  to  me  about  Brown  &  Williamsc 
because  of  your  severance  agreemer 


ui 


•cruggs  said  of  the  campaign  against  Wigand. 
"There  is  no  bifieer  lie  than  a  half-truthr 


but  I  have  a  problem.  Can  you  ana- 
lyze these  documents  for  me?'  He 
looked  at  two  pages  and  said,  'Wow!7" 
After  reading  a  few  more  pages  about 
fire  experiments,  Wigand  exclaimed, 
"Hey,  they  are  way  ahead  of  where 
we  were." 

Wigand  agreed  to  examine  the  Philip 
Morris  papers  for  Bergman.  He  was 
to  be  paid  like  any  other  corporate 


consultant,  about  $1,000  a  day.  "I 
was  bothered.  Everything  I  had  seen 
at  the  joint-venture  meetings  said  it  was 
not  technologically  feasible,"  he  later 
told  me.  "I  was  pissed  off!  They  had 
a  fire-safe-product  study  on  the  shelf 
in  1986  and  1987,  and  they  knew  it!" 
(A  spokesman  for  Philip  Morris  says 
the  company  has  been  unsuccessful  in 
this  so  far  but  continues  to  do  research.) 


Wigand  flew  to  New  York  for  a 
day  to  attend  a  screening  of  a  version 
of  the  projected  program  at  CBS.  At 
the  end  of  March,  CBS  broadcast  an 
expose  of  the  Hamlet  project,  which 
involved  a  fire-safe  cigarette  devel- 
oped at  Philip  Morris.  "I  was  angry 
when  I  saw  it,"  said  Wigand.  "They 
knew  all  along  it  was  possible  to  de- 
velop a  fire-safe  (Continued  on  page  206) 

181 


mm 

^m\ 

S 

Our  fin  de  siecle  Scarlett,     i 

Naomi  Campbell,  wears     m        'f 

"Valentine,"  a  silk-doupion  gala 

suit  by  Gianfranco  Ferre 

for  Christian  Dior  Haute  Couture, 

spring-summer  1996.  Meanwhile, 

Rhett  Butler— Charlton  Cannon  in 

an  evening  shirt  by  Charvet 

and  Vivienne  Westwood  smoking 

trousers— suggests  a  last  kiss                                                             ,  < 'J 

befote  the  last  stand. 

mjmjmjmjmjmjjr.  v             _    ^ppjUi^p  ».'_>_ 

• 



AND 


ett!  Ghosting  for  the  ultimate 

Me,  LAURA  JACOBS  recounts 

her  fashion  breakhroughs- 

er  tttse  fabulous  curtains?— 

KARL  LAGERFELD  and 


^TALLEY  summon 

pirit  of  a  thoroughly 

modern  Tara 


«r  * 


-,1I    to  ,j^> 


IOHM9l!19ll 


GARDENER 


Artfully  arrayed  in 
Gerald  O'Hara's 
hand-me-downs,  sole 
man  Manolo  Blahnik 
is  Tara's  gardener 
(as  well  as  punip- 
and-slipper  consultant). 
Backdrop  painted 
by  French  set  designer 
Stefan  Lubrina. 


•)•) 


Fiddle- 
dee-dee 

[hats  my  philosophy! 

Why,  as  the  millennium  turns 
heres  more  than  a  little  fiddle-while- 

\tlanta-burns  mentality  on  the  catwalk. 
Day's  night  today  and  black's  white  today 
and  white's  black  today!)  and  anything 
roes:  boys  in  tattersall  skirts,  girls  in  Grand- 
Da's  waistcoat,  men  in  bed  linens,  silk 
crinolines  that  could  engulf  an  elephant 
Tm  not  even  counting  what  some  of  the 
couturiers  wear). 

It  wasn't  like  this  when  I  was  a  belle. 
Dien  there  was  just  one  shape— the  beh- 
ind it  tolled  for  all  women.  In  fact,  haute 
couture  as  a  business  and  an  art  official- 
ly began  in  1858,  just  three  years  before 
the  Civil  War.  Rhett,  of  course,  knew  all 
about  it,  running  those  blockades  to  Paris. 
That  feather  hat  he  brought  me  in  my 
first  widowhood  was  from  the  Rue  de  la 
Paix,  the  street  made  famous  by  Charles 
Frederick  Worth,  founder  of  the  first 
house  of  couture.  Worth's  muse  was  Em- 
press Eugenie,  wife  of  Napoleon  Ill- 
whatever  looked  good  on  her  was  what 
the  rest  of  us  were  stuck  with.  Luckily, 
everything  looks  good  on  me. 

I  sometimes  think  I  was  ahead  of  Mr. 
Worth.  Remember  that  green  velvet  dress 
I  made  from  Mother's  portieres,  scandal- 
izing Mammy?  Well,  if  memory  serves  I 
pulled  them  down  around  1866.  Ten  years 
later  Worth  came  up  with  his  style  tapissier. 
Translated,  that's  "upholsterer's  style,"  the 
technique  of  swooping  skirts  up  and  back, 
like  draperies.  Tasseled,  fringed,  and  tuft- 
ed within  an  inch  of  life  itself,  women 
soon  looked  like  sitting  rooms  that  moved. 

GOD'S  NIGHTGOWN! 


Top:  Scarlett  models  the  costliest  evening 

gown  in  Paris— a  creation  that  took  1,280  hours 

to  embroider  at  the  House  of  Lesage— 

from  Karl  Lagerfeld  for  Chanel  Haute  Couture, 

spring-summer  1996.  Right:  in  a  cameo  as 

Mammy,  and  wearing  his  own  white  shirt  and 

apron,  Gianfranco  Ferre  toasts  proud 

papa  Rhett,  beaming  in  Vivienne  Westwood's 

velvet  greatcoat  with  fake-fur  collar. 


Lnything  goes  today: 

boys  in  tattersall  skirts, 
girls  in  Grandpas  waistcoat, 

men  in  bed  linens . . . 


\g 


t* 


*- 


/ 


# 


~Wzm 

?1 

\ 

* 
A 

- 

Pf 

p 

ML  i   •    jK'-jtff^ 

— **^    ^^  jS 

f    *^i 

..  THE  RECONSTRUCTK 

Inducted  into  couture's  closed  circle  as  desigi 

for  the  eminent  House  of  Givenchy,  John  Galliano  gives  n 

meaning  to  the  role  of  house  servant.  Opposite:  C  har 

Andrews  strikes  a  pose  a  la  Prissy,  while  Scarlett,  unhlushil 

in  her  Valentino  Couture  silk-and-lace  chemise,  sprii 

summer  1996,  flirts  with  a  vintage  C  artier  Collecti 

articulated  diamond  snake  (the  famous  necklace  created 

1968  for  the  Mexican  film  star  Maria  Feli: 


t 


\ 


i 


" 


/ 


^^B 

T*U 

■1         ^^B         H 

4  x 

- 


4 


**,til*5 


^WJ^P^\ 


I've  since  read  that  Worth  hated  t 
metal  cage  that  supported  our  b| 
skirts,  even  though  he  was  the  011 
who  made  it  fashionable.  But  I ! 
tell  you,  that  cage  was  a  secret  weap< 
of  the  southern  belle.  As  the  sch<| 
ar  Catherine  Clinton  has  noted 
her   latest   book,    Tara   Revisiu\ 
(Abbeville),  medical  supplies  we 
often  smuggled  under  skirts,  as  were  hail 
boots,  and  buttons.  And  wouldn't  ycf 
have  loved  to  have  seen  the  most  famoi) 
Confederate  hot-air  observation  balloon  ev| 
made?  Sewn  from  the  last  silk  south 
the  Mason-Dixon  line,  it  was  a  brillial 
patchwork  of  belles'  ball  gowns.  Generj 
James  Longstreet  called  it  "the  last  si| 
dress  in  the  Confederacy." 

Here's  a  funny  fashion  coincidence.  ^1 
-^*  the  very  same  moment  that  the  concept 

'"/'-./  '"'  haute  couture— or  the  Paris  Original— w>| 
born,  mass  production  gained  its  first  fool 
hold  in  the  market,  what  with  the  improvj 
ment  of  the  sewing  machine  (they  addel 
a  second  spool  called  a  bobbin).  Also  boil 
with  couture,  and  even  more  revolutiona! 
than  ready-to-wear,  was  an  approach  to  fas] 
ion  that  transformed  the  way  we  live:  | 
mean  the  institutionalized  "rapidity  <l 
change."  No  more  the  long,  slow  stylist! 
drift— nearly  140  years  later,  styles  chanjl 
every  six  months!  Gone  with  the  WWD.\ 
At  least  I've  been  constant.  Unlike  thl 
strange  sisterhood  the  Fashion  Press,  I 
will  never  view  the  gloom  of  widow's  weec| 
as  a  wardrobe  cornerstone.  Green  is 
color,  and  academics  have  annotated  til 
way  it  echoes  my  eyes,  evokes  my  Ashld 
envy,  epitomizes  my  life  force.  (Franklf 
my  dears,  I  prefer  Blahniks  to  footnotes! 
Recently  I  reread  Ms.  Mitchell's  masteJ 
piece  and  noticed  another  consistency 
my  big  scenes  are  always  punctuated  wilj 
slaps  or  kisses.  Well,  no  one  can  say 
wasn't  equal- opportunity  slapping  and  kisj 
ing.  1  admit  I've  been  difficult.  I  had  1 
be.  After  all,  if  anyone  was  the  first  si 
permodel,  it  was  me. 


_ 


FRANKLY,  MY  DEAR  .  .  . 

Top:  A  nanosecond  of  harmony  between 
Scarlett  and  Prissy— two  stubborn  daughters 
of  the  South— as  Scarlett  lounges  in  a  lame- 
lace  -and-marabou  evening  dress  from 
Emanuel  Ungaro  Haute  Couture,  spring- 
summer  1996;  her  handmade  embroidered 
mules  are  from  Manolo  Blahnik. 
Left:  Rhett  admires  his  trophy  wife,  who 
wears  a  white  silk  wedding  gown  embroidered 
with  plumes  from  Emanuel  Ungaro  Haute 
Couture,  spring-summer  1996.  House  servant 
John  Galliano  waits  on  the  newlyweds. 


FROM  ATLANTA  TO 
APPOMATIOX 

House  servants 

Shalom  Harlow  and 

Amber  Valletta 

make  off  with  the  silver 

during  the  burning  of 

Atlanta,  dressed  nattily 

in  men's  wear 

by  Gianni  Versace, 

fall  19%,  with 

white  evening  shirts 

bv  Charvet. 


wrJ 


> 


while  "Mammy" 
Ferrc  (whose  lurl 
Hermes  silk  squs 
adjusts  his  j>i  ass- 
green  lalTeta  gala  i 
lor  (  hrisrian  Dior 
Haute  Couture,  s| 
summer  1996.  Tulle 
"loves  are  by  Chanel 
Haute  Couture,  spring- 
summer  1996. 


1 


V. 


anyone  was 
ne  first  supermodel,  it  was 

Scarlett  OTHara. 


BELLE  OF  THE 
BAKBECUE 


Strapless  Scarlett 
rings  true  in  an  homage 
to  the  crinoline,  from 
John  Galliano  for 
Givenchy  Haute  Couture, 
spring-summer  1996. 


S    v 


.,;      fcy 


^'j 


^  ^  s: 


Born  to  wealth,  she  was  also  born  to  loss. 

But  all  the  tragedy  of  her  very  public  childhood 

could  not  prepare  GLORIA  VAJXDERBILT 

for  the  suicide  of  her  23-year-old  son. 

In  an  excerpt  from  her  poignant  memoir, 

Vanderbilt  remembers  the  day  when 

the  unthinkable  happened 


Photograph  by  WYATT  COOPER 


fc#3WW3 


Gloria  VanderbiJt  Cooper 

with  her  son  Carter,  then  six,  in 

the  pool  at  the  Coopers' 

Southampton  house,  called 

Summertime,  in  1971. 


t 


Nik 


Wyatt  Cooper, 
right,  plays  horse  with 
his  firstborn,  two- 
year-old  Carter,  in 
a  photograph  taken  by 
Gloria  Vanderbilt. 
Below,  the  Coopers 
with  newborn  Carter 
at  Faraway,  their 
home  in  Connecticut, 
part  of  a  Toni  Frissell 
shoot  for  the  February 
1966  issue  of  Vogue. 


is 


Carter  and  his  mother, 
left,  on  the  steps  of  his  school, 
Dalton,  in  New  York, 
1970.  Below,  the  Coopers 
with  their  two  sons, 
Anderson  and  Carter,  at 
home  in  New  York  in 
a  photograph  taken  for  the 
June  1972  Vogue. 


ome  of  us  are  born  with  a  sense  of  loss 
is  not  acquired  as  we  grow.  It  is  there  fr 
the  beginning,  and  it  pervades  us  throu 
out  our  lives.  Loss  can  be  interpreted  as 
ing  born  into  a  world  that  does  not  inch 
a  nurturing  mother  and  father.  It's  as  if 
were  trapped  in  an  unbreakable  glass  b 
ble  and  forever  seeking  ways  to  break 
and  touch  that  which  we  are  missing.  I  he 
you  don't  live  in  this  invisible  glass  bubl 
but  if  you  do  I  am  one  of  you. 

Those  of  us  who  are  born  in  the  glass  b 
ble  are  already  prepared  and  never  quite  t 
surprised— each  loss  somehow  echoes  fl 
first  loss,  the  one  we  know  so  well.  Soi 
thing  falls  into  place,  so  familiar  it  is  aim 
a  relief.  Still,  all  my  life,  with  each  los 
have  tried  to  break  out  of  it.  But  instead 
breaking  out,  I  found  myself  breaking 
ward,  each  loss  stripping  me  to  a  deeper  1 
er  of  myself  until  I  came  to  the  final  loss, 
fatal  loss  that  stripped  me  bare,  the  loss  til 
had  no  echo,  no  memory  of  anything  t 
had  come  before:  the  loss  of  my  son  Cari 
Cooper,  a  loss  I  thought  I  could  not  survi 
But  I  did.  The  unbreakable  glass  didn't. 

wish  my  mother,  Gloria  Morgan  V* 
derbilt,  were  living  in  New  York  tod 
just  around  the  corner,  so  that  I  coiv 
go  round  and  have  a  cup  of  tea  w* 
her,  talk  to  her  as  I  never  was  able 
when  she  was  alive.  She  has  been  dei 
about  30  years,  and  when  I  think  of  her,  which  is  oftf 
my  relationship  with  her  keeps  changing.  I  perceive  her- 
ways  I  never  had  before,  and  as  I  do  I  come  closer  to  hf 
and  so,  of  course,  to  myself.  The  last  time  I  spoke  to  1 
was  on  the  phone  hours  after  Carter  was  born.  She  a; 
her  twin  sister,  my  aunt  Thelma,  were  to  have  come  fr< 
California  for  the  birth.  Because  I  had  two  sons  by  a  pj 
vious  marriage,  my  husband,  Wyatt  Cooper,  and  I  hopi 
for  a  girl,  and  my  mother  did,  too.  But  as  the  time 
proached  she  became  gravely  ill  and  was  unable  to  me 
the  trip.  I  knew  she  was  dying  and  for  a  desperate  re 
ment  I  was  going  to  lie  and  say  our  wish  had  been  gra 
ed.  I  wanted  so  much  to  please  her,  to  make  her  happy 
know  that  there  would  be  a  Gloria  after  she  died,  a  G 
ria  after  I  died,  a  Gloria  named  after  her,  as  I  had  bo 
But  I  didn't.  I  told  her  that  she  had  a  beautiful  new  grai 
son  named  Carter  Vanderbilt  Cooper.  There  was  a  pau 
and  then  she  said,  "Why,  Gloria,  you're  going  to  start 
baseball  team."  I  laughed  with  her,  but  what  I  really  wa 
ed  to  do  was  cry— cry  for  having  disappointed  her  aga 
cry  for  not  being  able  to  break  out  of  myself  and  tell  1 
how  I'd  longed  to  be  close  to  her. 

Even  in  the  years  of  my  childhood  when  I'd  been  ma 


a 


k 


Excerpted  from  A  Mother's  Story,  by  Gloria  Vanderbilt,  to  be  publishec 
this  month  by  Alfred  A.  Knopf;  ©1996  by  Gloria  Vanderbilt. 


i 

i 


o  fear  her,  all  I  wanted  was  for  her  to  love 
ae,  touch  me,  so  that  I  could  merge  into  her. 
told  even  now  I  wanted  to  tell  her  how  sorry 
was  that  I  hadn't  been  born  the  boy  she  and 
ay  father,  Reginald  Vanderbilt,  had  wished  for- 
te already  had  a  daughter  by  a  previous  mar- 
iage.  But  he  had  taken  it  "rather  well,"  she 
old  me  when  I  was  17,  "when  it  turned  out 
ou  were  a  girl."  Yes,  my  mother  was  unat- 
ainable,  always  out  of  reach.  But  with  the 
ears  I  have  come  to  understand  it  was  not 
ter  fault— she  was  too  young  to  have  a  child. 
Jut  then,  some  women  never  should  have  one, 
md  I  suspect  she  was  one  of  them.  It  never 
iccurred  to  my  19-year-old  mother  or  to  my 
[4-year-old  father  that  it  was  in  any  way  sin-  ^™ 
;ular,  immediately  after  my  February  birth  in  New  York, 
or  them  to  take  off  for  Europe,  leaving  Naney  Morgan, 
ny  maternal  grandmother,  and  Dodo,  my  Irish  nurse,  to 
ake  the  newborn  to  Newport.  My  mother  and  father  did 
lot  return  until  August,  in  time  to  supervise  the  annual 
ancy-dress  ball  given  at  my  father's  240 -acre  estate,  Sandy 
*oint  Farm.  It  is  not  surprising  that  these  two  women,  ma- 
ernal  grandmother  and  devoted  nurse,  became  the  only 
eal  parents  I  came  to  know,  love,  adore,  and  feel  safe 
vith.  Nor  was  it  unpredictable  when  my  father  died  un- 
ixpectedly  a  year  later  that  my  20 -year-old  mother  couldn't 
vait  to  shake  free  of  Newport  and  move  to  Paris.  Now  I 
inderstand  her  eagerness.  Newport  was  Newport— and,  af- 
er  all,  it  was  1925,  and  Paris  was  Paris,  and  it  was  all 
omewhere  out  there  waiting  to  pursue:  fun,  life,  that  elu- 
ive  it  which  will  make  our  lives  magical,  brilliant,  happy- 
:ver-after.  Of  course,  I  didn't  understand  any  of  that  until 
rears  later.  Then,  happy  and  safe  though  I  was  with  my 
wo  devoted  substitute  parents,  something  was  missing. 

There  was  an  apparition  that  came  and  went.  Sometimes 
t  came  up  close,  looking  at  me  through  the  unbreakable 
dass,  smiling  before  disappearing.  And  who  was  it?  Mother, 
'.  was  told.  That's  whose  attention  I  kept  trying  so  frantical- 
y  to  get.  Later,  after  we  moved  to  Europe,  sometimes  even 
lesperately  scribbling  notes  to  my  father— throwing  them  into 
he  sea  from  one  of  the  many  ocean  liners  we  seemed  always 
o  be  on,  or  from  car  windows  as  we  sped  toward  Monte 
Harlo  or  through  the  green  of  an  English  spring.  (Had  he 
oved  my  mother?  Had  he  loved  me?  And  if  so,  why  didn't 
le  come  back?)  But  as  these  specks  of  crumpled  paper  wadded 
nto  balls  crashed  angrily  through  the  glass  bubble,  they  dis- 
ippeared  without  a  trace— for  my  father  was  dead. 

Wyatt  Cooper  was  born  on  a  farm  in  Quit- 
man, Mississippi,  in  1927,  graduated  from 
high  school  in  New  Orleans,  and  attended 
the  University  of  California  at  Berkeley 
and  U.C.L.A.,  where  he  majored  in  theater 
arts.  He  became  an  actor  on  stage  and 
television,  a  writer,  and  an  editor. 

We  met  at  a  small  dinner  in  a  friend's  house  in  New 
York.  From  the  first  moment  we  looked  at  each  other,  be- 
fore we  even  said  hello,  there  was  a  shock  of  recognition 


Garter  appeared 
in  his  pajamas,  talking 
as  if  he  were  awake. 
But  he  washt. 


'Why,  Gloria,  youre 

going  to  start  a  baseball  team,r 

my  mother  said. 


j 


> 


V 
v 


^4 


\ 


i 


Q 


m 


m 


>"   "jiifMtM**,, 


between  us.  We  knew  we  would  be  not  only  important  to 
each  other  but  also  together  and  part  of  each  other  for  a 
very  long  time.  We  were  both  in  our  mid-30s,  and  I  had 
two  sons  by  a  previous  marriage.  Wyatt  had  never  been 
married,  and  as  we  came  to  know  each  other,  we  both  knew 
that  we  wanted  the  same  things— a  life  together,  a  family. 

The  wide  wedding  band  he  designed  was  crafted  by 
Buccellati.  Inside,  his  words,  engraved:  Gloria— Wyatt— to- 
gether without  fear— trusting  in  God— in  ourselves— in  each 
other— with  hope— faith— and  love.  When  he  gave  it  to  me 
he  said,  "Lots  of  happiness  ahead  for  you,  little  one."  And 
what  he  said  that  day  did  for  many  years  come  true. 

On  December  7,  1977,  Wyatt  Cooper  had  the  first 
of  a  series  of  massive  heart  attacks.  He  was  in 
New  York  Hospital  from  then  until  he  died  on  the 
operating  table,  January  5,  1978.  He  was  50.  At 
the  time,  Carter  was   12,  Anderson,  his  brother, 
was  10,  and  they  both  attended  the  Dalton  School. 
Carter  graduated  from  Princeton  in  1987,  while 
Anderson  was  completing  his  sophomore  year  at 
Yale.  From  college  Carter  went  on  to  become  a 
contributor  to  Commentary,  and  later  an  editor  at 
American  Heritage  magazine.  He  was  well  on  his 
way  toward  the  future  he  looked  forward  to. 

On  July  22,  1988,  in  New  York  City,  Carter  Coo- 
per took  his  own  life.  I  was  there  when  it  happened, 
and  I  thank  God  it  was  me  and  not  his  father,  who 
could  not  have  survived.  But  I  may  be  wrong  about 
that— I  thought  I  couldn't,  either,  and  I  did.  It  was  an 
aberration— a  terrible  accident— a  misadventure— a  mys- 
tery—then, as  it  is  now.  Those  of  us  who  knew  and  loved 
Carter  are  still  trying  to  find  answers. 


fTl  o  be  pregnant  has  been  for  me  each  time  the  supreme 


■$|     1  joy.  It  is  my  greatest  achievement,  and  it  is  hard 
|       for  me  to  understand  women  who  sometimes 
1       complain  about  the  discomfort  and  loss  of  self- 
/v:       image  they  experience  when  they  are  pregnant,  be- 
1       cause  I  never  felt  so  centered,  so  beautiful,  so 
loved,  so  important.  I  loved  my  body  and  my  spirit  as  nev- 
er before.  Each  day  came  as  a  miracle.  There  was  not  a 
moment  when  I  didn't  feel  my  best  self.  I  was  doing  the 
greatest  thing  in  the  world  without  having  to  do  anything— 
all  I  had  to  do  was  be. 

Wyatt  was  sometimes  asked  if  Carter  and  Anderson 
were  aware  of  the  part  my  family  has  played  in  Ameri- 
can social  history— as  if  there  were  some  singular  cir- 
cumstance in  being  a  Vanderbilt  that  required  special 
handling  in  telling  one's  children  about  it— and  he  was 
reminded  of  Sarah  Churchill's  reply  when  asked  what  it 
was  like  to  be  the  daughter  of  Sir  Winston  and  Lady 
Churchill.  "It  was  like  having  a  father  and  a  mother," 
she  said. 

The  answer,  of  course,  as  Wyatt  said,  is  that  they  did 
know,  and  it  seemed  no  more  novel  or  particular  to  them 
than  it  would  if  the  name  had  been  less  well  known,  and 
no  more  tact  or  discretion  was  required  in  relating  Van- 
derbilt stories  than  there  was  in  talking  about  his  own, 

197 


less  glamorous  ancestors.  Carter  was  fascinated  by  ar- 
chitecture and  the  preserving  of  landmarks;  his  principal 
interest  in  Vanderbilt  history  had  to  do  with  houses.  He 
liked  the  Breakers  at  Newport  better  than  Marble  House 
or  the  house  at  Hyde  Park;  he  wondered  why  Bergdorf 
Goodman,  instead  of  tearing  down  my  grandfather's  Vic- 
torian mansion,  which  covered  the  block  on  Fifth  Av- 
enue between  57th  and  58th  Streets,  couldn't  have  left  it 
standing  and  simply  set  up  shop  in  it  and,  in  doing  so, 
preserved  it  for  posterity.  He  was  curious  about  what 
sort  of  persons  built  the  houses,  particularly  his  favorite, 
Biltmore,  in  Asheville,  North  Carolina,  and  was  fasci- 
nated by  the  fact  that  the  estate  had  its  own  railroad  and 
that  the  hundreds  of  acres  of  grounds  were  laid  out  by 
Frederick  Law  Olmsted,  who  designed  Central  Park. 
Both  boys  liked  the  idea  that  it  was  their  great-great- 
great-grandfather  William  Henry  Vanderbilt  who  brought 
to  New  York  and  had  set  up  in  Central  Park  the  Egyp- 
tian obelisk  called  Cleopatra's  Needle,  around  the  base 
of  which  they  often  played. 

One  night  late,  midnight  or  so,  when  Carter  was  1 1, 
his  father  was  working,  typing  at  his  desk  down 
the  hall  from  Carter's  room.  Suddenly  Carter  ap- 
peared in  his  pajamas,  standing  there,  talking  as 
if  he  were  awake.  But  he  wasn't.  Several  times  be- 
fore, he  had  walked  in  his  sleep,  but  this  was  the 
first  time  he  was  saying  sentences  that  seemed  to  have  no 
connection  with  this  sudden  visitation.  As  he  spoke,  Wy- 
att  quickly  typed  his  conversation,  and  when  he  stopped, 
he  carried  him  back  to  his  bed,  sitting  beside  him  until  he 
was  certain  he  was  really  asleep.  The  next  day  we  showed 
Carter  what  he  had  said,  but  he  had  no  recollection  of 
walking  down  the  hall  or  of  standing  talking  to  his  father 
or  of  being  carried  back  to  his  bed,  and  was  most  amused 
by  this  sleepwalking/-talking  event.  I'm  telling  you  about 
this  because  it  connects  somehow  with  what  happened  lat- 
er. I  don't  know  quite  how.  but  I  think  it  does,  and  you'll 
see  why  when  I  tell  you  about  it.  I'd  give  anything  in  the 
world  to  have  that  piece  of  paper  with  Carter's  words  on 
it.  It's  in  a  box  somewhere  along  with  my  papers  (I  save 
everything).  Or  it  could  be  in  one  of  the  many  files  of 
Wyatt's  papers,  which  I  have  not  yet  gone  through  be- 
cause I  am  unable  to  decide  which  university  to  donate 
them  to.  Or  it  may  be  I  postpone,  can't  let  them  go,  as 
I  miss  Wyatt  so  much.  I  am  haunted  by  the  thought  that 
if  this  paper  with  Carter's  sleepwalking  words  could  be 
found  they  would  give  us  clues. 

It  ties  in  with  Carter's  dread  of  taking  naps  in  the 
middle  of  the  day.  because  they  always  disoriented  him. 
On  that  Friday  afternoon  of  July  22  he'd  fallen  asleep 
on  the  sofa  of  our  library  the  heat  was  unbearable,  but 
he  hadn't  wanted  the  air-conditioning  on.  I'd  been  with 
him,  went  out  for  a  minute,  and  when  I  came  back  he 
was  stretched  out  on  the  sofa,  asleep.  I  went  to  wake 
him,  but  hesitated.  He  hadn't  slept  for  several  nights,  he 
was  exhausted— so  I  let  him  sleep.  After  his  death  I  tor- 
mented myself,  and  still  do.  Had  I  not  hesitated,  had  I 
awakened  him,  it  might  not  have  happened. 

198 


: 


After  Carter  and  Pearson,  the  girl  he  loved,  li 
broken  up,  months  before  that  July  day,  he  1 1 
told  me  about  it  but  didn't  want  to  talk  abi 
it.  At  the  time  I  tried  as  intuitively  as  I  co  i 
to  sense  his  feelings.  She  and  I  had  beco  s 
friends,  but  since  their  breakup  I  hadn't  he.  i 
from  her.  I  respected  his  wishes  and  didn't  want  to  fl 
trude  until  he  was  ready  to  confide  in  me.  Outwardly, 
presented  his  usual  self— confident,  in  control  of  his  1 
He  liked  his  job  at  American  Heritage,  had  many  frien 
Soon,  I  was  hoping  he  would  get  involved  elsewhere 
that  he  wasn't  grieving  over  the  breakup.  He  didn't  se 
to  be,  but  there  was  no  way  of  really  knowing.  He  k 
it  all  very  much  to  himself. 

I  kept  telling  myself  he  was  at  the  age  of  break 
away,  making  his  own  life— still,  I  constantly  asked  my; 
whether  I  should  intrude  more  aggressively  into  his 
Back  and  forth  I  went,  trying  to  reassure  myself  tha 
had  found  the  right  balance,  knowing  that  had  I  been  \ 
att  I  wouldn't  even  be  asking  myself  these  questions, 
they  wouldn't  exist.  Then  a  few  months  later  I  wenti 
New  Orleans  on  business;  when  I  returned,  I  told  Car 
that  I'd  sent  Pearson  a  postcard,  as  she  and  I  had  oft 
spoken  of  that  city.  He  was  furious.  He  walked  out  of 
room,  saying,  "How  about  a  little  support  here,  Morr 
I  followed  him  out  into  the  hall,  overcome  with  paini 
my  insensitivity,  but  the  door  to  the  elevator  was  alree 
closing.  When  he'd  said  that,  "How  about  a  little  supp 
here.  Mom?"  it  had  never  crossed  my  mind  that  I  waa 
supporting  him  in  every  way  possible.  I  kept  going  o 
and  over  what  he'd  said,  trying  to  reach  him  on  1 
phone,  but  it  wasn't  until  days  later  that  he  returned  i 
calls,  and  when  he  did  he  clearly  didn't  want  to  talk  abc 
her  or  what  had  happened  between  us. 

I  wished  it  had  been  me  who  had  died  instead  of 
father.  Carter  would  not  have  shut  him  out.  That  co 
munication  they  had,  always  had,  would  be  there  for  hi 
to  connect  with.  I  felt  that  then,  and  I  feel  it  now, 

From  Pearson  Marx,  Wednesday,  July  27,  1988: 

What  can  I  say  to  you?  I  can't  stop  thinking  abi1 
you  and  Anderson.  I  can't  stop  thinking  ab' 
Carter,  and  now  I  know  it's  true,  that  the  thii 
that  happen  in  life  can  break  a  person  in  two 
it's  like  this  for  me,  I  can  hardly  bear  to  imag 
what  it  must  be  like  for  you.  Everything  is  hau 
ed  now.  I  keep  looking  around  my  room,  ly 
on  the  bed  where  he  lay  beside  me  making  me  feel  safe  and  stro 
I  keep  going  through  the  presents  he  gave  me,  the  delicate 
tique  boxes,  the  books,  the  jewelry.  I  keep  going  through  th< 
two  years  of  my  life,  the  two  happiest  years  I've  ever  had, 
membering  all  the  things  he  gave  me.  A  few  weeks  ago  somec 
said  to  me  about  Carter:  "He  saw  the  beauty  in  you  and  cc 
milted  to  it."  No  one  else  has  ever  done  this  and  it  changed  r 
Carter  showed  me  what  it  was  to  love  and  he  loved  what  it  v 
to  be  transformed  by  that  emotion.  It  was  as  though  I  had  been  be 
again.  And  Carter  did  that  for  so  many  others.  He  saw  the  be. 
ty  when  everyone  else  was  blind,  he  could  find  it  with  his  unt 
ing  eye.  and  once  he  had  found  it,  he  made  it  precious  forevei 
Gloria,  I  always  used  to  say  to  Carter,  "How  did  you  get 
be  so  good?  How  did  you  get  to  be  as  good  as  you  are?  \ 


M 


h 


•» 
hi 
a 
ca 
id 
bit 
let 

id 


■wann 


CCT1 


I  m  moving 

back  home,  Mom," 

he  said,  back 

into  his  old  room 

on  the  top  floor. 


he 


ould  write  a  book  called  How  I  Got  to  Be  So  Good."  I  used 
o  say  it  playfully,  though  I  knew  the  answer.  That  kind  of  good- 
less  doesn't  just  happen.  You  and  Wyatt  and  Anderson  helped 
o  make  him  the  good,  tender,  beautiful  creature  he  was.  Before 
,  even  met  you,  I  said  to  him,  "Your  mother  must  be  a  won- 
lerful  woman  for  you  to  have  turned  out  the  way  you  did,"  and 
le  said,  "She  is  a  great  lady."  He  loved  you  so  much.  He  was 
o  proud  of  you.  so  eager  to  say.  Look,  this  incredible  person 
3  my  mother.  He  worried  about  you  too  -he  was  such  a  worri- 
r.  as  we  know.  He  used  to  say,  "I  want  her  to  be  happy,  how 
:an  I  help  her  to  be  happy  and  strong?" 

So  when  I  wonder  what  I  can  say  to  you,  I  can  say  he  loved 
'ou  more  than  anything.  I  can  say  that  I  will  love  you  and  be 
;rateful  to  you  forever  for  giving  him  life,  for  bringing  him  into 
his  world.  I  can  say  that  he  will  be  there  beside  us  like  an  an- 
;el  when  we  are  sad  and  suffering,  but  that  in  a  way  he  will  be 
ven  closer  to  us  when  we  are  happy  and  laughing.  Carter's  ex- 
cessive face  was  made  for  happiness.  He  had  the  greatest  laugh: 
ull-bodied,  strong,  rich  with  the  joy  of  living.  I  know  he  is  with 
is.  urging  us  toward  the  time  when  we  will  be  able  to  laugh  again 
o  that  he  can  laugh  with  us. 

The  morning  of  July  22.  Carter  arrived  unexpect- 
edly. He  now  had  his  own  apartment  several  blocks 
from  his  office.  It  was  Friday  around  1 1  a.m. 
and  the  hottest  day  of  the  year.  "I'm  moving 
back  home,  Mom,"  he  said,  back  into  his  old 
room  on  the  top  floor,  where  he  had  lived  dur- 
ng  his  days  at  Dalton  and  until  he  went  to  Princeton, 
low  great,  I  said,  but  why  not  take  Anderson's  room, 
s  he  was  in  Washington  that  summer  and  later  would 
ie  at  Yale  for  his  senior  year.  The  two  rooms  were  next 
o  each  other,  and  when  we  moved  in,  the  boys  had  had 
mich  argument  about  which  should  have  the  larger 
oom.  Anderson  finally  had  won.  The  room  had  a  fire- 
•lace  and  spacious  terraces  around  the  top  of  the  build- 
ig.  Carter  was  pleased  about  having  Anderson's  room, 
nd  he  went  over  to  the  door  leading  from  my  bedroom 
o  the  terrace.  The  door  was  closed,  and  he  looked  out 
sngingly  across  the  river.  "I  can't  wait  to  go  to  Southamp- 
an,"  he  said.  Our  family  house  had  been  rented  for  the 
ummer,  and  I  said  we'd  go  there  the  day  after  Labor 
)ay,  as  soon  as  the  tenants  were  out. 


Then  he  came  over  and  sat  beside  me  on  the  foot  of 
the  bed.  He  put  his  arms  around  me  and  said,  "Oh. 
Mom,  I  love  you  so  much."  I  love  you.  too,  I  said,  and 
we  both  laughed  because  I  had  rollers  in  my  hair  and 
they'd  gotten  squashed  against  his  head  as  he  hugged  me. 
Can  you  stay  for  lunch,  I  asked  him,  or  do  you  have  to 
go  back  to  the  office?  "No,  I'll  be  here."  I'll  make 
spaghetti,  I  said,  and  we'll  have  lunch  together  and  talk. 
I  had  a  meeting  at  12  at  home  which  would  take  only 
half  an  hour,  and  I  looked  forward  to  lunch  and  the  af- 
ternoon with  him,  eager  to  know  what  had  brought  him 
to  the  decision  to  move  back  home. 

While  I  got  myself  together  for  the  meeting,  he  went 
into  the  kitchen,  where  Nora,  my  assistant,  who  had 
known  Carter  since  birth,  was  fixing  lunch.  Just  as  he  did, 
Anderson  called  from  Washington  and  I  told  him  the 
good  news  and  he  said  it  was  fine  with  him  for  Carter 
to  take  his  room.  I  was  almost  ready  when  Nora  came  in 
to  tell  me  the  people  had  arrived  for  the  meeting.  I  told 
her  with  joy  that  Carter  was  going  to  be  moving  back 
home.  "Is  he  all  right?"  she  said.  "What  do  you  mean, 
'all  right'?"  I  was  almost  annoyed  with  her.  What  could 
not  be  "all  right"  about  his  wanting  to  move  back  home? 
But  I  didn't  pursue  the  matter.  The  people  were  waiting, 
and  I  was  eager  to  get  the  meeting  over  with  so  I  could 
get  back  to  Carter. 

The  meeting  over,  I  found  Carter  upstairs  lying  on  An- 
derson's bed.  There  were  two  sliding  glass  doors  cover- 
ing the  wall  which  looked  out  over  the  terraces  and  the 
East  River,  and  in  front  of  the  river  a  walkway  leading 

199 


into  the  park.  He  had  opened  the  glass  doors  and  the 
heat  in  the  room  was  overpowering.  Don't  you  want  me 
to  turn  on  the  air-conditioning?  I  said,  sitting  down  be- 
side him.  "No,"  he  said,  "it's  fine  the  way  it  is."  How 
about  some  lunch?  I  asked  him.  "That  would  be  nice," 
he  said.  I  told  him  I'd  go  down  and  arrange  to  have 
trays  in  the  library.  Years  ago  I'd  discovered  a  recipe  for 
spaghetti  sauce  that  I'd  make  batches  of  and  freeze,  and 
this  had  become  Carter's  favorite  meal.  Soon  it  was 
ready  and  I  went  upstairs  to  him.  He  was  lying  on  the 
bed  as  I'd  left  him,  looking  out  through  the  doors  toward 
the  river.  We  went  downstairs  to  the  library  and  as  we 
had  lunch  he  told  me  he  hadn't  slept  for  several  nights, 
and  then  he  asked  for  more  spaghetti.  After  you  finish 
it,  I  said,  why  don't  you  stretch  out  on  the  sofa  and  let 
me  turn  the  air-conditioning  on?  "No,  leave  it  as  it  is,"' 
he  said,  and  after  a  while  he  stretched  out  on  the  sofa, 
asking  me  to  cover  him  with  a  quilt  and  for  a  pitcher  of 
water,  he  was  so  thirsty. 

Directly  behind  the  sofa  was  a  large  window  with  a 
view  of  the  river.  He  drew  the  quilt  around  him  and  stared 
out.  I  sat  beside  him.  He  looked  at  me  and  said,  "Mom. 
am  I  blinking?"  I  was  surprised,  reassuring  him  that  while 
he  was  asking  me  he  had  blinked  several  times.  Carter, 
are  you  taking  anything?  "No,"  he  said.  Carter  had  never 
done  drugs,  although  many  of  his  peers  had,  and  we  had 
often  discussed  this.  He  was  very  health-conscious,  worked 
out  at  the  gym,  abhorred  smoking,  never  drank  anything 
more  than  an  occasional  glass  of  wine  at  a  party.  Drugs 
had  no  place  in  his  past,  present,  or  future  and,  indeed, 
the  autopsy  performed  after  his  death  showed  there  were 
no  drugs  in  his  system.  Once,  after  having  a  tooth  pulled, 
requiring  anesthesia,  he  told  me  how  he  hated  the  anes- 
thetic because  it  had  made  him  unconscious.  He  didn't 
want  to  miss  a  moment,  a  second,  of  life. 

~  t  never  occurred  to  me  that  day  to  ask  him  if  he 
was  taking  any  doctor-prescribed  medication.  He'd 
had  allergies  and  asthma  since  he  was  a  child,  and 
I  knew  he  had  chosen  to  go  to  a  new  doctor  rec- 
ommended by  a  friend,  but  he  had  been  reticent 
J_  about  it  and  I  hadn't  pressed.  He  seemed  to  be  in 
charge  of  his  life,  and  again  I  thought  it  part  of  grow- 
ing up,  of  wanting  to  make  his  own  decisions.  Later.  I 
discovered  what  the  doctor  had  prescribed— a  new  respi- 
ratory inhaler.  Soon  after  Carter's  death  I  spent  many 
hours  with  J.  John  Mann,  M.D.— in  1988  at  Payne  Whit- 
ney in  New  York,  later  at  the  University  of  Pittsburgh's 
Western   Psychiatric  Institute  and  Clinic  in  Pittsburgh, 
and  in  1995  at  Columbia  Presbyterian  Medical  Center  in 
New  York— talking  to  him,  going  over  each  moment,  each 
detail  leading  up  to  Carter's  death,  trying  to  find  answers 
to  what  had  happened.  Over  and  over,  he  kept  coming 
ick  to  the  respiratory  inhaler.  Perhaps  it  would  explain 
V  Carter  had  requested  the  quilt  and  pulled  it  around 
him  even  though  the  day  was  so  hot,  why  he  was  so  hun- 
gry, so  thirsty— would  explain  why  Carter  thought  he 
\        't  blinking,  why  his  eyes  were  glazed  when  later  he 
ca       into  the  room  before  he  ran  up  the  stairs.  This  res- 

200 

tUtUBHMUf/aifM 


piratory  drug  is  described  in  the  Physicians'  Desk  Refii 
ence  as  potentially  causing  central-nervous-system  stiml 
lation.  An  article  in  The  Journal  of  Allergy  and  Clinic] 
Immunology  (1988,  Volume  81,  Number  2,  pages  351  —6 1 
attributed  "agitation,  insomnia,  terrifying  nightmares  ail 
acute  paradoxic,  depressive  states"  to  medications  f I 
asthma  such  as  theophylline.  Was  his  asthma  worse  ail 
requiring  the  use  of  more  medication?  This  drug  was  p| 
tentially  both  friend  and  foe. 

Was  the  asthma  a  threat  to  his  mind?  To  quote  onij 
again  from  Tlie  Journal  of  Allergy  and  Clinical  Immunology 

Classic  descriptions  of  the  mental  effects  of  hypoxia  are  to 
found  in  the  works  of  Haldane  et  al.  and  have  since  been  ail 
ply  confirmed.  Marginal  acute  hypoxia  produces  subtle  degrel 
of  impairment  of  consciousness  with  poor  judgment,  diminish^ 
alertness,  reduced  attention  span,  difficulty  in  performing  inttj 
lectual  tasks,  in  judging  time,  and  with  memory,  particularly 
the  area  of  new  learning.  Emotional  symptoms  can  include  eml 
tional  lability,  irritability,  or  depression.  Anxiety  may  be  a  notabl 
feature  of  increasing  hypoxia.  There  may  be  more  obvious  me] 
tal  slowing,  irrational  fixed  ideas,  and  uncontrollable  outbursi  i 
Without  reason  [the  patient]  may  begin  to  laugh,  sing,  burst  inrj 
tears,  or  become  dangerously  violent. 

The  article  concludes: 

The  several  mechanisms  by  which  allergic  diseases  can  lead 
psychologic  changes  have  generally  been  poorly  acknowledge] 
We  need  to  be  more  aware  of  the  frequency  of  higher  mentfl 
function  impairment  in  moderate  to  severe  asthma  and  of  the  nel 
vous  system  side  effects  of  many  of  the  drugs  that  we  prescribl 
It  appears  very  likely  that  misinterpretation  of  the  significant 
of  observations  of  such  changes  can  be  the  origin  of  erroneoi| 
conclusions. 

It  is  my  belief  that  the  respiratory  inhaler  was  the  ke 
to  the  demon  that  took  Carter's  life.  That  July  22,  whe 
I  asked  him  if  he  "was  taking  anything,"  he  knew  I  didn 
mean  any  doctor-prescribed  medication,  which  we  bot 
would  have  trusted,  so  when  he  said  no,  I  knew  that  \ 
wasn't  taking  any  so-called  recreational  drugs.  Yes,  he  w; 
relieved  when  I  told  him  he  had  blinked,  and  we  laughe 
about  it.  But  I  was  puzzled.  Would  you  like  to  call  D 
Young?  I  said.  This  was  a  cognitive  therapist  recon 
mended  by  another  friend,  whom  I  had  only  recent 
heard  Carter  had  started  seeing.  Later  I  found  out  that  r 
had  canceled  an  appointment  earlier  that  week  with  D 
Young,  telling  him  he  no  longer  needed  to  see  him.  Ntl| 
he  had  no  interest  in  calling  Dr.  Young. 

How  about  my  reading  to  you?  I  said.  We  often  did  th 
together  and  it  was  one  of  my  greatest  pleasures.  "Th; 
would  be  nice,"  he  said,  and  after  some  discussion  we  se 
tied  on  a  short  story  in  The  New  Yorker  by  Michael  Cui 
ningham— "White  Angel."  In  the  story,  while  his  paren 
are  having  a  party  a  young  man  runs  and  crashes  throug 
a  closed  plate-glass  door  that  faces  a  garden  and  he 
killed.  That's  terrible,  I  said  when  I  finished  reading.  "It 
a  good  story,"  Carter  said,  and  it  was.  We  discussed  it  fc 
a  while  and  then  I  asked  him  if  he'd  like  me  to  read  an; 
thing  else.  "No— I'll  rest  a  bit."  How  about  my  getting 
movie  we  can  watch  tonight?  "Road  Warrior"  he  said.  We'\ 


ria  Vanderbilt 
li  her  son  Anderson 
les  SI.  James  Episcopal 
inch  in  New  York 

r  Carter's  funeral  service, 
s  26,  1988. 


■-j 


,  . 


«...  >i  -  ' 


was  going  to. 

But  he  didrit— 

he  let  so. 


seen  that  so  many  times— how  about 
Bertolucci's  1900,  just  out  on  video. 
"Yes,  I've  been  wanting  to  see  that,"  he 
said,  and  I  went  into  my  room  to  get  the 
number  of  the  video  rental  to  call.  Then 
I  went  back  into  the  library  and  asked 
him  again  if  he  wanted  me  to  turn  on 
the  air-conditioning.  But  he  didn't,  and  I 
left  him  to  rest,  going  into  the  other 
room,  leaving  the  door  open.  It  was  un- 
bearable, the  heat.  I'll  be  close  by,  I 
said— let  me  know  if  you  need  anything, 
I'm  right  here. 

From  time  to  time  that  Friday  I  went 
back  and  forth  to  see  if  Carter  was 
all  right.  Every  time  I  passed  the  open 
door  going  into  the  library  he  was  there, 
still  asleep,  stretched  out  on  the  sofa. 
I  was  grateful  that  he 
was  getting  sleep  at 
last  after  those  white 
nights.  At  about  seven 
I  was  in  my  room 
taking  off  a  pair  of 
earrings  when  sudden- 
ly the  door  opened 
and  Carter  came  in. 
Dazed,  he  came  to- 
ward me,  saying  over 
and  over,  "What's  go- 
ing on?  What's  going 
on?"  There  was  noth- 
ing going  on— the 
room  was  quiet,  we 
were  alone,  there  was 
no  radio,  there  was  no 
sound.  Nothing's  go- 
ing on,  Carter,  no 
one's  here  except  us,  I'm  here,  Nora's 
here,  we're  all  here,  nothing's  going  on, 
the  Bertolucci  video's  here,  nothing's  go- 
ing on.  I  was  standing  close  to  him, 
speaking  very  softly.  He  was  in  a  daze, 
and  I  kept  talking,  talking,  softly,  softly, 
trying  to  center  him,  bring  him  back  to 
himself.  He  clearly  didn't  know  me,  or 
where  he  was,  or  who  he  was— disorient- 
ed like  someone  woken  unexpectedly 
from  a  deep  sleep,  his  eyes  glazed.  "No, 
no,"  he  said,  shaking  his  head,  pulling 
away. 

I  tried  to  hold  him,  but  he  had  suddenly 
become  determined— running  like  an  ath- 
lete, fast,  really  fast,  with  purpose,  energy, 
as  if  he  knew  where  he  was  going,  knew 
the  destination.  I  ran  after  him,  trying  to 
pull  him  into  the  library— Carter,  come 
here,  I  have  to  talk  to  you!  I  was  panicked, 
almost  screaming,  trying  to  hold  him,  but 
he  was  running  so  fast,  and  although  I  had 
sneakers  on  he  got  way  ahead  of  me  as  he 
raced  through  the  halls,  on  up  th  stairs. 
When  I  got  there,  Anderson's  room  was 

202 


empty.  The  glass  doors  were  open  exactly 
as  they  had  been  left  that  morning.  There 
was  a  low  stone  wall  surrounding  the  ter- 
race, and  Carter  was  sitting  on  top  of  it, 
about  12  feet  away  from  where  I  stood, 
his  right  foot  placed  on  top  of  the  wall, 
the  other  on  the  terrace  floor.  What  are 
you  doing,  Carter?  I  shouted,  starting  to- 
ward him.  He  put  his  right  arm  out, 
straight  out  rigidly  in  front  of  him;  there 
was  something  military  about  it,  extreme- 
ly forceful,  the  palm  of  his  hand  held 
firmly  out  to  warn  me  off.  No,  no,  he 
said,  don't  come  near. 

Don't  do  this  to  me,  don't  do  this  to 
Anderson,  don't  do  this  to  Daddy,  I  was 
screaming,  reaching  out,  straining  toward 
him.  Will  I  ever  feel  again?  he  said,  and  I 
screamed  Yes,  you  will,  I  know  what  pain 


Then    suddenly    a   helicopter   pass 
above  us,  high  up  in  the  fading  summ 
light— he  looked  directly  up  as  if  it  wert' 
signal,  then  turned  and  reached  his  hai 
out  yearningly  to  me,  and  I  moved  I 
ward  him,  my  hand  reaching  for  his,  b 
as  I  did  he  moved,  as  deftly  as  an  athle 
over  the  wall,  holding  on  to  the  edge  as 
it  were  a  practice  bar  in  a  gym.  He  firrr 
and  confidently  held  on  to  the  wall,  har; 
ing  down  over  the  14-story  building— si  j 
pended  there.  Carter,  come  back,  I  shoi 
ed,  and  for  a  moment  I  thought  he  w 
going  to.  But  he  didn't— he  let  go. 


I 


If  Carter  had 
intended  to  take  his  own 

life,  he  never  would 

have  done  it  in  our  home 

in  front  of  me. 


is  and  I  can  help  you.  Dr.  Young  can 
help  you,  and  I  started  down  on  my 
knees,  my  hands  begging  out  to  him,  and 
I  was  going  to  say,  I'm  your  mother,  but 
I  didn't,  because  he  shouted  No  no  no  to 
me,  don't  do  that— and  I  quickly  obeyed— 
got  off  my  knees  stood  there  reaching 
out  to  him.  Do  you  want  me  to  get  Dr. 
Young  on  the  phone?  I  shouted.  Do  you 
know  his  number?  he  said.  No,  I  said, 
and  he  got  up  from  the  wall,  standing 
straight,  staring  past  me,  past  the  river, 
the  distant  bridge,  staring  ahead  as  if  he 
didn't  see  them.  He  stood  with  a  terrible 
rigid  tenseness  and  strain,  struggling,  bat- 
tling inside  himself.  Then  he  said  the 
number  loudly  and  very  clearly— then  he 
shouted  out  Fuck  you  and  I  started  to- 
ward him,  but  he  had  sat  back  again  in 
the  same  position  on  the  wall,  only  this 
time  he  was  looking  down  at  the  walkway 
14  stories  below,  mesmerized,  swaying 
back  and  forth.  I  stood  there  afraid  to 
move,  afraid  it  would  send  him  down  — 
shouting  Carter,  Carter. 


ili 


\\ 


he 

tl 


no 


m 


yl 


$ 


I 
HOI 

den 
ran  down  the  stairs  to  the  kitchen,  "t  M' 
couldn't  be."  Nora  said.  Yes,  yes,  I  ke  '  • 
saying.    But    she    wouldn't    believe    n 
and  said,  "Come,  let's  go  and  find  him 
Together   we    ran 
and  I  stood  while  si 
went  looking  over  th 
wall,  but  she  saw  not 
ing  and  started  runnir 
around  the  vast  terrace 
looking  for  him.  Sty 
was  right,  of  course, 
hadn't  happened.    Bit 
when  she  came  bac 
Carter  wasn't  with  h 
"I'll  go  down  to 
street,"  she  said,  andi 
went  on  down  with  hi 
into    my    room    an 
stood  in  the  spot  whei 
Carter  and  I  had  stoc' 
minutes  ago.  Somethinf 
was  in  my  hand— ore  : 
of    the    earrings    I'll 
been  taking  off  when  he'd  first  come  infi  oun 
the  room;  apparently,  I'd  held  on  to  i 
but  was  only  now  aware  of  this.  It  ha' 
been  in  my  hand  as  I  ran  after  him  up  tr 
stairs,  onto  the  terrace,  as  I'd  stood  ther 
shouting  to  him,  reaching  out  to  him- 
holding  on  to  it  as  if  it  were  a  magnet  th; 
would  pull  him  off  the  wall,  back  to  me. 

Nora  came  back  upstairs  and  said 
police.  Yes,  yes,  I  urged,  we  must  ca. 
them,  do  that,  they  are  the  authorities 
they  would  be  the  ones  to  tell  us  it  hadn 
happened.  I  too  started  calling— D 
Young,  certain  that  he  too,  an  even  higl 
er  authority  than  the  police,  would  te 
me  it  hadn't  happened.  But  all  I  got  wa 
his  voice  coming  from  an  answering  m; 
chine,  with  no  referral  number  to  call,  s 
I  left  a  message.  I  had  never  met  hirr 
and  later,  when  I  did,  he  told  me  the 
when  he  picked  up  his  messages  Carter' 
name  was  cut  off  and  he  had  sat  up  a 
night  going  through  the  names  of  his  pi 
tients— dismissing  Carter  immediately  a 
being  the  last  person  to  consider.  Whe  I 

VANITY  FAIR /MAY  199  '. 


I 

I 


.e  finally  heard,  he  still  couldn't  believe 
:.  I  kept  going  through  my  address 
K>ok,  calling  people,  friends  I  loved,  at 
jandom— certain  that  the  next  one  was 
i.oing  to  be  the  one  telling  me  it  had  not 
happened.  One  man,  a  lifelong  friend, 
|ust  said,  "Did  he  leave  a  note?"  It  was 
iike  a  line  of  dialogue  from  a  detective  in 
fji  old  movie— and  the  insensitivity  of  it 
inay  be  fascinating  to  me  now,  but  at  the 
iime  it  took  my  breath  away. 

Thursday,  the  night  before  Carter  died, 
[ie'd  made  a  call  around  midnight  to 
'earson,  the  girl  he  loved,  the  girl  he'd 
troken  up  with.  He  wanted  to  see  her— 
light  away.  It  was  late,  it  was  raining,  she 
fieeded  to  wash  her  hair,  she  wanted  to 
■ook  pretty  for  him,  so  they  talked  for  a 
fvhile — and  then  made  a  date  to  see  each 
Wher  for  dinner  on  Monday,  July  25. 
She  called  my  house  on  Friday  at  eight 
>'clock— she  couldn't  stop  thinking  about 
lim  and  had  been  trying  to  reach  him  all 
day  at  the  office,  but  he  wasn't  there  and 
lis  number  at  home  didn't  answer.  Nora, 
toho  answered  our  phone,  told  her  what 
dad  happened.  Stunned,  she  said,  "Is  he 
ill  right?" 

Suddenly  there  were  sirens,  and  the 
^room  was  full  of  people.  Dr.  Tuch- 
rjaan,  our  family  physician,  was  standing 
n  front  of  me.  He  would  be  the  final  one 
io  know.  I  looked  close  into  his  face,  saw 
K  so  clearly  as  I  said,  Tell  me  it's  not 
true?  I  looked  in  his  eyes  and  knew  then 
Jiat  it  was  true,  and  I  sat  down  on  a 
sench  in  the  hall  and  my  mouth  opened 
md  a  sound  came— people  were  all 
iround  me,  paramedics,  one  taking 
blood  pressure,  police  were  there,  and 
:he  sirens,  but  the  sound  filling  the 
rooms,  the  sky  above,  was  not  sirens— it 
Mime  from  an  animal— on  and  on  it 
went— but  the  sound  was  coming  from 
me,  and  as  it  came— on  and  on— I  split  in 
two  and  the  glass  bubble  cracked  into  a 
million  pieces  and  was  no  more. 

I  kept  going  over  it,  moment  by  mo- 
ment, from  the  time  Carter  came  into 
[he  room  to  the  time  it  happened.  I  still 
go  over  it,  now  and  every  day  of  my  life, 
agonizing  over  what  I  could  have  done 
to  prevent  it.  Pretended  to  faint— he 
might  have  come  out  of  himself  to  help 
me.  How  stupid  to  have  asked  him  for 
Dr.  Young's  number— I  should  have  had 
the  wit  to  tell  him  Dr.  Young  was  al- 
ready on  the  phone,  come  in  to  speak  to 
him.  I  could  have  told  him  a  car  was 
downstairs— right  now— waiting  to  take 
us  to  Southampton,  where  that  morning 
when  he  first  came  into  my  room  he  had 

VANITY  FAIR /MAY  1996 


so  longingly  wanted  to  go.  And  I  kept 
thinking  how  when  I'd  first  seen  him  sit- 
ting there  my  impulse  was  to  risk  the 
distance,  rush  across  the  terrace,  and, 
with  all  my  strength,  try  to  pull  him  off 
the  wall,  but  I'd  discarded  it  instantly,  as 
seeing  me  running  toward  him  might 
have  sent  him  over  before  I  got  to  him. 
But  maybe  I  should  have  done  that. 
Then— had  I  been  calm  and  spoken  soft- 
ly as  I  had  before,  before  he  started  rac- 
ing out  the  door,  racing  upstairs,  spoken 
in  the  softly  lulling  sound  I  had  used 
when  he  had  first  come  into  the  room 
dazed,  instead  of  shouting  to  him  when  I 
saw  him  sitting  on  the  wall— Carter, 
what  are  you  doing?  Had  I  done  that— I 
could  have  saved  him  .  .  .  But  it  hap- 
pened so  fast,  my  brain  cutting  in  and 
out  as  if  I  were  on  a  careering  roller 
coaster,  trying  to  stop  it. 

I  knew  that  if  Carter  had  intended  to 
take  his  own  life  he  never  would  have 
done  it  in  our  home,  in  front  of  me. 
Something  had  clicked  him  into  some- 
thing else,  and  the  only  thing  that 
stopped  me  from  clicking  into  it  with 
him  and  following  him  over  the  wall 
was  Anderson. 

My  bed  had  become  a  raft  where  I  lay 
far  out  to  sea,  and  one  by  one,  or  in 
threes  or  fours,  there  would  come  a  life 
support,  a  friend,  climbing  onto  the  raft 
to  be  with  me.  I  stayed  there  sobbing  and 
sobbing  for  days,  without  eating,  without 
combing  my  hair  or  brushing  my  teeth, 
without  changing  my  nightgown  or  show- 
ering, until  the  day  of  the  wake— and  they 
understood.  I  didn't  sleep  but  took  no 
sedatives  or  medication.  I  didn't  want 
to— what  I  wanted  was  to  talk  and  talk, 
go  over  it  again  and  again,  and  it  kept 
me  alive  in  some  strange  way  I  still  don't 
understand. 

The  losses  in  my  life  over  the  years  had 
been  many,  each  loss  stripping  me  down 
to  another  layer,  bringing  me  closer  to  the 
center  of  myself.  But  the  loss  of  Carter 
had  not  stripped  off  another  layer— it  had 
exploded  the  core  of  what  I  had  known 
myself  to  be,  and  a  new  self  would  have 
to  be  born  if  I  were  to  survive. 

I  started  writing  letters  to  Carter: 

Monday-Afternoon— Carter— I  don't  know 
how  to  start  this  letter.  It's  a  letter  to  you 
but  it's  really  a  letter  to  myself.  I  believe 
there  is  a  logic  in  the  world  that  comes 
from  a  Great  Intelligence  and  that  we 
have  our  place  on  earth  and  have  been 
born  and  placed  here  and  there  is  a  logic 
and  reason  behind  it.  Carter,  I'll  never  be 


Celine 
Surroundings 

Come  by  and  visit  the  new  Celine 
Boutique  at  313  North  Rodeo  Drive, 

opening  in  April  1996.  This  new 

boutique  will  carry  Celine's  complete 

line  of  women's  ready-to-wear  and 

accessories.  For  store  hours, 

please  call  310-273-1243. 

Tropical  Thrills 

From  the  seductive  rhythms  of 

Bahamian  music  to  the  challenge  of  big 

game  fishing,  there's  always  something 

to  entice  you  to  The  Islands  of  The 

Bahamas-especially  this  spring. 

May  7-11:  The  15th  Annual  Green 
Turtle  Club  Fishing  Tournament,  The  Abacos 

May  16-18:  The  Caribbean  Music  Festival, 
Nassau/Cable  Beach/Paradise  Island 

May  24-28:  The  29th  Annual  Long 
Island  Regatta,  Long  Island 

For  more  information  about  these  and  other 

exciting  events,  call  The  Islands  of  The  Bahamas 

Tourism  Board  at  1-800-4-BAHAMAS 


d  "Shapes 
Spring 

Hanro  and  Vanity  Fair  invite  you 
celebrate  "The  Shapes  of  Spring. 
Come  to  a  special  informal  modeling 

session  to  get  an  exclusive  look  at 

Hanro's  exciting  new  lingerie  designs, 

and  receive  a  gift  with  any  $75  Hanro 

purchase.  While  you're  there,  enter  the 

"Shapes  of  Spring"  sweepstakes  to  win  a 

series  of  sessions  with  a  personal 

trainer  or  a  Hanro  lingerie  wardrobe. 

Your  spring  celebration  begins: 

Tuesday,  April  23,  1996 

12:00  to  2:00  p.m. 

The  Hanro  Boutique 

8th  Floor 

Saks  Fifth  Avenue 

611  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York  City 

Certain  restrictions  apply.  One  gift-with-purchase 

per  customer.  Sweepstakes  details  and  entry  forms 

available  at  the  Hanro  boutique. 


203 


Gloria  Vanderbilt 

the  same.  The  pain  I  knew  as  a  child  I  al- 
ways thought  of  as  my  test  and  I  imag- 
ined that  nothing  could  ever  hurt  me  in 
that  way  again.  There  was  always  a  center 
hard  as  a  diamond  that  no  one  could 
reach  or  take  away  from  me.  It  was  my 
final  secret.  ...  I  am  at  the  end  of  my 
life  now,  and  all  I  want  is  to  see  that  An- 
derson is  all  right,  and  Nora,  and  when 
that  is  done  I  want  to  go  to  you  and  Dad- 
dy. For  I  am  certain  that  there  is  a  place 
where  you  wait  for  me,  a  place  far  be- 
yond my  flawed  and  frail  perception. 
And  so  there  is  no  goodbye  for  us. 
Things  will  happen  as  they  are 
meant  to  happen.  With  the  same 
logic  that  took  you  from  me. 


and  find  myself  in  a  park  stopping  be- 
neath a  tree  to  circle  the  trunk  with  my 
arms,  to  feel  my  spirit  merge  on  up  to  the 
branches,  on  up  to  the  sky  above.  I  felt 
wordless  communication  with  strangers 
passing;  others  sitting  at  outdoor  cafes,  a 
woman  walking  her  dog,  were  not  alien 
to  me,  nor  was  I  to  them.  I  knew  their 
pain,  their  joy— yes,  even  joy— for  al- 
though I  resided  in  a  dimension  where 
even  the  memory  of  it  seemed  forever 
lost  to  me,  I  knew  joy  existed  somewhere 
for  others.  I  too  had  once  had  it  in  my 
life.  No  one  would  ever  be  a  stranger  to 
me  again,  for  I  knew  that  if  they  had  not 
already,  the  day  would  come  when  they 
would  have  to  live  through  tragedy  and 


ill 

I 

ikcn 

pen 

arkne- 

in 

IBB 

Ik  ' 


.;:  ''i 


Tluirsday— Carter— another  day  has 
gone  by.  I  miss  you.  Sometimes  I 
feel  you  are  close  by.  Then  there 
are  times  you  are  lost  to  me  but  in- 
side the  pain  is  there  and  I  know  it 
will  never  go  away.  Carter,  I  didn't 
understand  what  happened  to  me 
as  a  child  and  I  don't  understand 
what's  happening  now.  I  don't  un- 
derstand anything  anymore.  All  I 
understand  is  pain. 


Saturday— Carter,  I  believe  be- 
yond what  has  happened  that 
there  is  a  force,  a  Great  Intelli- 
gence that  is  God— that  nothing 
could  have  stopped  you  leaving 
as  you  did.  That  you  know  why 
now,  that  you  are  with  Daddy 
that  you  both  know  why,  and 
someday  Andy  and  I  will  know  and  un- 
derstand the  logic  of  what  happened. 

Saturday— Carter— I  don't  have  to  pretend 
anymore  about  anything.  Carter— I  know 
you  loved  me  and  you  knew  I  loved  you. 
Destiny. 

Friday— Carter— sometimes  you  are  here 
so  close— today,  not  present  in  that  way. 
Are  you  all  right?  Are  you  with  Daddy? 
Are  you  close  to  me  as  you  are  close  to- 
gether? Is  it  going  to  be  all  right— or  am  I 
going  through  the  door  to  you? 

As  strangers  we  entered  the  room  of 
the  support  group  I  joined,  but  later, 
sitting  in  a  circle,  we  were  not  strangers, 
not  even  friends,  we  were  a  family,  one 
that  does  not  judge,  for  pain  had 
stripped  us  bare.  Oh  yes  ...  we  knew 
each  other  well. 

After  our  meetings  I  would  walk  home 


Dazed,  Carter 

came  toward  me. 

saying  over 

and  over,  "Whats 


going  on 
What  s  going  on 


Karen,  standing  behind  my  head,  hel 
in  her  hands  and  after  a  time  touched '   sl; 
neck  and  ears  as  I  breathed  deeply, 
eyes  closed  and  I  entered  a  hypnotic  st 
The  session  was  to  concentrate  on 
emotional  center  and  the  higher  centei 
I    envisioned    a    white    light    gc 
through  the  top  of  my  head,  going 
down  into  my  chest,  the  touch  of 
hands  sending  it  there  into  my  storm 
which  became  sore,  and  a  hard  ball 
glutinous  texture  was  felt  to  be  there.  I 
visioned  it  to  be  an  embryo,  an  emb 
who  was  me,  who  felt  unworthy  to 
born,  who  wanted  more  than  anyth 
else  to  be  loved,  who  was  afraid.  Then 
embryo  became  warm  and  decided  to 
born.  It  rose  up  to  Karen's  har 
A  golden  light  suffused  me  a 
moved  up  into  my  head— highs 
and  I  imagined  becoming  an 
cient  tree  rooted  in  earth  with 
branches  reaching  to  the  sky  1 
the  tree  outside  the  window  at  i 
inn.  But  these  branches  had  lea 
and  flowers  and  a  nest  and  wit 
the  nest  an  egg  that  held  a  bl 
that  broke  free  and  flew  away, ; 
as  it  did,  the  tree  cracked  asun 
and  I  was  free. 

The  embryo  gave  me  a  gift  [ 
golden  light  so  that  I  would 
be  afraid. 

Carter,  are  you  close  by?  1 
we  separated  only  by  a  veil? 


■tran 

Ik 

[be  f 

Ml. 
SM 

Ifo 


he 
ength 

«h\ 


r  a 


suicide    is    defined    by 


Wile 


loss  as  we  all  do  and  this  connected  us. 
not  only  now  but  forever.  By  giving  my- 
self to  the  visceral  pain  that  possessed 
and  consumed  me,  and  by  not  fighting  it, 
as  each  moment  passed  I  gained  energy, 
more  than  I'd  had  the  moment  before, 
and  with  this  came  an  overpowering  will 
to  survive,  because  if  I  could  it  might 
help  others  who  had  experienced  tragedy, 
for  anyone  who  meets  such  testings  of  the 
soul  without  escaping  into  a  glass  bubble 
is  helping  to  quicken  the  vibrations  of  the 
whole  earth. 


S: 


unday  (Juniper  room,  Galisteo  Inn,  Gal- 


great  peace,  quiet  here.  At  my  first  session 
at  the  Light  Institute  with  a  facilitator, 
Karen,  I  talked  about  you,  about  how  it 
happened,  how  I  don't  understand  but  be- 
lieve that  it's  part  of  the  plan,  the  design- 
nothing  could  have  been  done  to  prevent 
it.  .  .  .  1  lay  with  eyes  open  for  a  time. 


Random  House  Dictionary 
"a     person     who     intentions} 
takes  his  or  her  own  life."  Oft 
later,  when  Carter's  friends  fn 
Princeton  and  I  talked,  they  said  t! 
whenever  discussions  had  come  up  abo 
suicide  Carter  always  said  it  was  son 
thing  that  he  himself  could  never 
What  happened  was  an  aberration,  1 
a  stroke,  or  lightning  hitting.  It  may  he 
been   triggered  by   his   allergy  doctc 
prescription. 

But  I  still  don't  know,  none  of  us  < 
the  reason  why  it  happened  or  what  \ 
mons  took  possession  of  his  fantasies 
he  slept  so  deeply  on  the  sofa  in  the 
brary  that  staggeringly  hot  July  day.  I  | 
lieve  someday  we  will,  and  it  will  fit  ii 
place  like  the  last  piece  of  a  puzzle,  a 
when  it  does  we  will  understand  tl 
there  is  a  reason  why  terrible  things  h; 
pen  in  the  world— we  will  understand  1 
tragedies  that  come  to  us— understa 
why,  in  the  same  way  that  we  understa 
joy  but  do  not  question  it.  The  day  w 
come— maybe  sooner  than  we  thinl 
when  it  will  be  made  clear  and,  simplis  J 


till 


Dm 

icing 


sen 

m 


204 


VANITY  FAIR  /MAY  Y 


ough  it  sounds,  I  believe  the  answer  it- 
lf  will  be  so  simple,  so  right,  so  true, 
at  when  we  do  understand  we  shall  no 
nger  cry  out  Why,  God,  why?—  for  with 
iderstanding  we  shall  be  out  of  pain,  out 
'darkness  into  light.  It  takes  a  great  leap 
'  faith  to  believe  this,  but  I  do,  and  in 
one  measure  it  has  brought  me  peace. 


y  ach  day,  each  year  that  passes  as  I 
.j  live  with  Carter's  death,  I  come  to 
e  it  in  perspective  to  the  tragedies  that 
ive  happened  and  are  happening  every 
ay  in  our  world— the  Holocaust,  Rwan- 


da, Bosnia— tragedies  so  indescribable 
that  one  mother's  pain  is  maybe  not  so 
important  after  all.  Except  to  me,  of 
course.  But  perhaps  in  some  small  way  it 
will  be  to  you— perhaps  if  you  are  suffer- 
ing from  loss  and  feel  you  can't  go  on,  it 
will  reach  you,  for  what  I  am  trying  to 
say  to  you  is:  Don't  give  up,  don't  ever 
give  up,  because  without  pain  there  can- 
not be  joy,  and  both  are  what  make  us 
know  we  are  alive.  You  have  the  courage 
to  let  the  pain  you  feel  possess  you,  the 
courage  not  to  deny  it,  and  if  you  do  this 
the  day  will  come  when  you  wake  and 


know  that  you  are  working  through  it. 
and  because  you  are,  there  is  a  hope, 
small  though  it  may  be,  a  hope  you  can 
trust,  and  the  more  you  allow  yourself  to 
trust  it,  the  more  it  will  tell  you  that— al- 
though nothing  will  ever  be  the  same, 
and  the  suffering  you  are  working 
through  will  be  with  you  always— you  will 
come  through,  and  when  you  do  you'll 
know  who  you  really  are,  and  someday 
there  will  be  moments  when  you  will  be 
able  to  love  again,  and  laugh  again,  and 
live  again.  I  hope  this  will  come  true  for 
you  as  it  has  for  me.  □ 


lampion 


Continued  from  page  137)  often  beating 
Ider  and  seemingly  more  talented  boys 
fith  the  intensity  of  his  will. 

The  first  time  he  saw  Bayer  at  a  tour- 
ament,  when  Bayer  was  only  15,  Tulum 
ras  struck  by  the  boy's  courage  and  in- 
tinct  for  combat.  "That  child  has  a  heart 
he  size  of  his  chest,"  thought  Tulum,  "the 
tart  of  a  champion."  Bayer  himself  did 
>ot  think  he  was  a  natural  for  the  sport, 
ut  he  knew  his  desire  was  so  strong 
hat  he  could  turn  his  weaknesses  into 
trengths.  "Some  people  know  instinctive- 
/  why  it  is  important  for  them  to  be  the 
lest,"  says  Dave  Micahnik,  the  University 
>f  Pennsylvania  coach  who  successfully 
fecruited  Bayer  for  next  fall.  "Cliff  is  that 
ivay — it  is  vital  that  he  be  the  best." 

On  occasion  the  pressure  of  school  and 
fencing  was  almost  too  much  for  someone 
j*>  young.  Once,  he  fenced  at  the  Junior 
world  Cup  in  Giengen,  Germany,  with 
nelancholy  results.  To  get  there  he  had  to 
lake  an  international  flight  to  Stuttgart,  a 
(rain  to  Heidenheim,  and  then  a  bus  to 
jiengen.  He  was  tired  upon  arrival,  which 
iffected  his  concentration,  and  he  fenced 
aoorly,  not  even  making  the  top  32.  Then 
ae  had  to  retrace  his  steps,  lugging  all  his 
tear,  trying  to  do  his  homework  on  the 
train,  in  order  to  rush  back  to  school  in 
New  York.  Unable  to  get  a  decent  night's 
sleep  on  the  plane,  he  wondered  whether  it 
was  all  worth  it  and  thought  about  quitting. 

But  he  knew  he  was  getting  better.  In 
1994,  while  still  a  high-school  junior  at 
Riverdale  Country  Day  School  in  New 
York  City,  he  came  in  third  at  the  U.S. 
national  championships.  It  was  a  stun- 
ning achievement.  He  was  amused  by  the 
response  of  the  older  fencers  to  his  suc- 
cess: "Who's  this  upstart  kid  who's  doing 
so  well,  they  were  thinking,  and  I  was 
thinking,  Third,  that's  not  good  enough,  I 

/ANITY  FAIR /MAY  1996 


can  do  better.  I  can  win  this  whole  thing. " 
By  the  time  of  his  high-school  grad- 
uation, at  age  17,  he  was  already  ranked 
No.  3  in  the  country.  He  defeated  Zaddick 
Longenbach,  an  Olympian  in  1992,  at  a 
senior-circuit  tournament  in  New  Jersey. 
Both  Longenbach  and  Bayer  had  worked 
out  at  Salle  Santelli  and  the  Metropolis 
Fencing  Club  in  New  York  City,  and  Lon- 
genbach had  been  beating  Bayer  since 
Bayer  was  nine.  Bayer's  older  brother, 
Greg,  a  former  captain  of  the  Princeton 
fencing  team,  had  watched  the  match  and 
was  startled  by  what  he  saw.  For  the  first 
time,  he  realized,  his  brother's  physical 
abilities  had  caught  up  with  his  competi- 
tive instincts.  Bayer  himself  felt  he  was 
ready  to  take  on  Bravin  in  Louisville. 

In  the  first  round  of  the  1995  nationals, 
Bayer  was  nervous.  Yefim  Litvan,  his 
coach,  sensed  it  immediately.  "Relax,"  he 
said.  "Just  have  fun  here."  That  helped 
and  as  he  relaxed  he  began  to  see  his  op- 
ponents' moves  more  clearly.  He  made 
the  semifinals  and  thus  qualified  for  the 
Senior  World  Championships  and  the 
World  University  Games. 

The  semifinal  match  with  Longenbach 
was  intense.  For  a  while  it  was  touch  for 
touch.  Bayer  had  never  seen  Longenbach 
so  focused  in  a  bout.  But  Bayer  won, 
15-13.  That  meant  he  would  face  Bravin 
in  the  final. 

In  1994,  Bravin  had  beaten  Bayer,  15-11, 
at  the  nationals,  but  Bayer  was  not  intimi- 
dated. His  hero  was  the  great  Italian 
fencer  Stefano  Cerioni,  the  1988  Olympic 
gold  medalist,  who  was  known  as  the  most 
aggressive  of  fencers,  a  man  who  ap- 
proached every  match  as  if  it  were  a  street 
fight.  Bayer  wanted  no  part  of  a  silver 
medal.  He  and  his  friend  Sean  McClain 
had  their  own  saying:  "Silver  sucks."  Now 
Bayer  was  sure  that  he  could  beat  Bravin— 
after  all,  Bravin  had  not  been  much  older 
when  he  had  won  his  first  national. 


As  the  two  prepared  to  fence,  the  air 
was  electric.  Bravin  knew  that  he  was 
now  the  hunted  and  that  it  was  much 
harder  than  being  the  hunter.  He  knew 
also  that  the  physical  gap  with  Bayer  had 
narrowed.  He  sized  up  the  younger  man 
and  found  he  was  altogether  too  much  like 
he  himself  used  to  be,  with  little  respect 
for  existing  hierarchies.  Bravin  remem- 
bered his  second  N.C.A.A.  championship, 
in  1992.  He  had  been  ranked  24th,  which 
annoyed  him  greatly,  because  in  his  own 
mind  he  deserved  to  be  the  favorite  that 
year.  He  had  responded  by  winning. 

They  both  were  fencing  well.  Bravin 
took  an  11-8  lead.  He  was  pleased  and  felt 
certain  he  would  get  a  fourth  national  ti- 
tle. He  began  to  think  that  Bayer  too  be- 
lieved that  the  old  order  would  hold,  that 
Bravin  was  the  champion  and  would  con- 
tinue to  be  so.  Here  he  made  his  mistake. 
He  relaxed  and  became  overconfident.  Cer- 
tain he  had  established  his  superiority,  he 
became  less  focused,  less  aggressive.  Watch- 
ing the  match,  Dave  Micahnik  saw  Bayer 
go  to  the  end  of  the  strip  after  Bravin  won 
a  point,  slap  himself  on  the  leg  in  anger, 
and  let  out  a  roar,  as  if  he  were  waking  up 
from  some  long  hibernation.  Then  he 
came  back  and  stormed  past  Bravin  to  win 
the  bout,  15-12. 

Yefim  Litvan  now  believed  that  Bayer 
would  become  an  Olympic  medalist,  but 
perhaps  in  2000— this  year,  1996,  would  be 
one  in  which  to  gain  international  experi- 
ence. But  Bayer,  with  the  fearlessness  of 
the  young,  thought  otherwise,  that  there 
was  no  reason  to  enter  a  match  thinking 
of  it  only  as  experience  for  the  future. 

In  defeat  Bravin  realized  he  had  proba- 
bly lost  something  of  his  edge  and  cer- 
tainly something  of  his  mystique.  He  de- 
cided to  take  a  year  off  from  law  school 
to  work  on  his  fencing  and  get  ready  for 
the  Olympics.  He  needed  to  find  out 
whether  he  still  had  the  hunger,  whether 
he  could  still  be  the  hunter.  □ 

205 


Wigand 


(Continued  from  page  181)  cigarette,  and 
they  even  gave  it  a  code  name:  Hamlet. 
Get  it?  To  burn  or  not  to  burn.' " 

At  the  end  of  the  60  Minutes  episode, 
Mike  Wallace  questioned  on-camera  a 
Philip  Morris  executive  who  had  an- 
nounced that  his  company  was  filing  a 
$10  billion  lawsuit  against  ABC  for  a 
Day  One  broadcast  about  alleged  manipu- 
lation of  nicotine  levels  in  its  cigarettes. 
ABC  had  problems:  one  of  them  was  a 
source  nicknamed  Deep  Cough,  who  was 
an  executive  at  RJR.  If  Deep  Cough's 
identity  was  to  be  kept  a  secret,  she  could 
not  testify  in  a  libel  suit. 

In  April  1994,  Henry  Waxman,  the  Cal- 
ifornia congressman,  was  holding  pub- 
lic hearings  on  tobacco  in  Washington. 
Wigand  watched  the  live  coverage  on 
c-span  of  the  testimony  of  top  executives 
of  the  seven  largest  tobacco  companies. 
He  was  in  his  den  with  Lucretia  when  he 
watched  Andrew  Tisch,  the  chairman  of 
Lorillard,  testify,  "I  believe  nicotine  is 
not  addictive."  Then  he  heard  Thomas 
Sandefur  say  the  same  thing.  Wigand  was 
furious.  "I  realized  they  were  all  liars. 
They  lied  with  a  straight  face.  Sandefur 
was  arrogant!  And  that  really  irked  me." 
Wigand,  however,  was  hamstrung;  he  had 
the  threat  of  a  lawsuit  hanging  over  his 
head.  He  could  not  criticize  Sandefur 
publicly  or  his  child  might  lose  her 
medical  insurance. 

After  Wigand  started  working  as  a 
confidential  expert  for  CBS,  his  name  be- 
gan to  circulate  in  anti-tobacco  circles. 
He  was  soon  called  by  the  Food  and 
Drug  Administration.  Would  he  consider 
advising  F.D.A.  experts  on  cigarette  chem- 
istry? His  identity  would  be  protected. 
For  Wigand,  the  invitation  to  Washington 
was  a  major  step  toward  regaining  his 
self-respect.  By  the  time  F.D.A.  commis- 
sioner David  Kessler  appeared  before 
Congress  in  June  1994,  he  had  reportedly 
been  tutored  by  Wigand  on  ammonia  ad- 
ditives and  nicotine-impact  boosting. 

Wigand  was  invaluable;  he  even  helped 
the  F.D.A.  circumvent  a  standard  tobac- 


co-industry tactic— "document  dumping." 
If  a  company  is  subpoenaed  for  docu- 
ments related  to  nicotine  studies,  it  is 
common  in  the  industry  to  respond  "by 
driving  a  tractor-trailer  to  Washington 
and  leaving  10  tons  of  documents  at  your 
door,"  according  to  a  close  associate  of 
the  F.D.A.  In  this  case,  perhaps  with  an 
assist  from  Wigand,  the  F.D.A.  was  able 
to  ask  B&W  for  specific  papers. 

That  month,  Wigand  said,  he  received 
a  threatening  phone  call.  "Leave  or  else 
you'll  find  your  kids  hurt,"  the  caller  said. 
Wigand  called  Bergman  in  a  panic.  "I 
thought  it  could  be  a  crank  call,"  Berg- 
man told  me.  "I  knew  Wigand  was  in  a 
great  quandary.  He  was  bound  up  be- 
cause of  his  contracts  and  yet  he  was 
filled  with  moral  outrage."  Bergman  had 
been  through  this  before  with  whistle- 
blowers.  He  even  had  a  name  for  Wi- 
gand's  mental  state:  "transition  time."  He 
remained  patient  and  faxed  amusing  draw- 
ings to  Wigand's  children. 

Soon  Wigand  told  Bergman  another 
death  threat  had  come.  Wigand  was  be- 
coming distracted,  unable  to  concentrate. 
He  had  started  to  drink  again.  "I  used  to 
come  home  and  drink  three  fingers  of 
booze  every  night,"  he  told  me.  One  day 
when  he  had  his  two  young  daughters  in 
the  car,  he  stopped  to  buy  a  bottle  of 
liquor.  "I  am  no  goddamned  angel.  I 
can't  hide  what  happened.  I  had  one  of 
those  big  jackets  with  the  big  pockets.  In- 
stead of  getting  a  basket,  I  grabbed  it  and 
put  it  in  my  pocket.  And  then  I  realized  I 
didn't  have  cash.  And  I  said,  'Wait  a 
minute,'  and  I  ran  out.  And  then  some- 
body came  running  after  me.  They  said, 
'Somebody  has  been  stealing  in  here  be- 
fore.' The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  I  had 
the  bottle  in  my  pocket.  Was  it  hidden? 
No.  Was  it  exposed?  Yes.  My  children, 
Rachel  and  Nikki,  were  in  the  car.  I  had 
$300  in  cash  in  the  car.  I  said,  i  have 
money.  Look.'  I  made  sure  that  I  showed 
the  cop  the  money.  Was  it  intentional?  It 
was  two  days  after  the  death  threat.  I 
wasn't  thinking.  Why  would  I  want  to 
steal  a  $10  bottle  of  booze?  Give  me  a 
break.  The  whole  thing  was  dismissed 
without  adjudication.  You  can  be  arrested 
and  charged  with  a  lot  of  things  in  your 
life.  Did  you  know  that  even  Thomas 


rat 
id 

CO 


hi 


ts 


Sandefur  was  once  arrested  and  pleac 
guilty  on  a  D.W.I.?" 

Wigand  did  not  tell  Bergman  about 
episode,  but  Bergman  sensed  that  sor 
thing  was  very  wrong.  He  worried  ab< 
Wigand's  state  of  mind.  He  was  at  the  !■! 
ginning  of  a  long  dance  to  create  a  sei 
of  trust  in  his  source,  who  he  felt  had 
incredible  story  to  tell.  "Other  whist 
blowers  had  come  out  of  the  tobacco 
dustry  to  tell  what  they  knew,  but  Wiga 
was  singular.  As  an  explorer,  I  felt,  > 
gand  was  Christopher  Columbus,"  Be 
man  told  me.  "The  bottom  line  is  tl     ,, 
this  was  a  man  with  significant  inforr      v 
tion,  but  it  wasn't  just  that  he  had  to  w>  jn  ii 
ry  about  the  obvious,  which  is  Brown 
Williamson  crushing  him,  but  he  had 
worry  about  what  would  happen  in 
personal  life." 

A  lawyer  from  the  Justice  Departmt  i-cf 
went  to  Louisville  in  April  to  take  \ 
gand's  deposition  on  cigarette  ignitk 
Privately,  he  complained  that  the  law) 
did  not  ask  the  right  questions.  He  ai 
worried  about  his  signed  agreement  w 
B&W  and  claims  he  took  its  legal  depa 
ment's  advice  to  stick  to  the  compa 
line.  He  testified  that  there  was  no  pos 
bility  of  developing  a  safe  cigarette  a 
that,  as  far  as  he  knew,  B&W  had  nev 
committed  fraud— testimony  that  won 
later  be  used  to  challenge  his  credibili 
By  this  time  Wigand  had  become  a  sht 
ow  expert  on  the  tobacco  industry.  I 
was  hired  by  ABC's  law  firm  Wilm 
Cutler  &  Pickering  to  give  technical 
vice  in  the  $10  billion  lawsuit  Philip  Md 
ris  had  filed  against  ABC. 

Wigand  continued  to  tell  Bergm 
that  he  could  not  talk  about  B&W  un 
his  severance  package  was  completed, 
March  1995.  Wigand  did  not  tell  Bei 
man  that  he  had  signed  a  confidential 
agreement,  but  several  of  Bergmai 
finest  pieces  had  been  with  sources  wl 
had  been  bound  by  such  contracts.  "T 
idea  of  somebody  having  a  confidentia 
ty  agreement  didn't  even  occur  to  me 
a  problem!  That  was  my  job,  to  get  pe 
pie  to  talk!" 


In  January  1995,  Wigand  began  teachii 
school,  much  to  Lucretia's  surprise.  I 
was  making  one-tenth  the  salary  he  h; 
made  at  B&W,  but  he  seemed  quite  happ 


feW 


Wigand  took  up  smoking.  "I  wanted  to  understarj] 
the  silendje  of  how  it  made  you  feel." 


vleanwhile,  Bergman  had  been  feeling 
he  heat  from  New  York.  Mike  Wallace 
vas  getting  antsy:  "For  God's  sake,  Low- 
bll,  when  are  you  going  to  get  this  guy 
on  tape?"  In  March,  Bergman  met  with 
iVigand  and  his  wife  at  a  French  restau- 
•ant  in  Louisville.  If  Jeff  went  on-cam- 
«ra,  Lucretia  asked,  what  would  they  do 
f  they  got  sued?  Bergman  said,  "There 
May  be  anti-tobacco  lawyers  who  would 
Igree  to  represent  you  for  free.  But  we 
don't  even  know  yet  if  there  is  a  story." 
Was  there  anything  new  to  say  on  60 
Minutes'!  Bergman  next  sent  his  associate 
Droducer  to  Louisville  to  do  a  prelimi- 
taary  interview  with  Wigand.  She  called 
Bergman  after  the  interview  and  men- 
tioned that  Wigand  had  given  her  a  copy 
Bf  his  B&W  settlement  agreement  with 
the  confidentiality  clause.  "He  needs  a 
lawyer,"  Bergman  said. 

In  June  1994,  The  New  York  Times  had 
run  long  articles  based  on  thousands  of 
pages  taken  from  B&W— the  cache  of  pa- 
pers copied  at  a  Louisville  law  office  by 
Merrell  Williams.  Only  in  July  1995  did 
the  University  of  California  and  tobacco 
expert  Stanton  Glantz  put  the  documents 
on  the  Internet  after  successfully  fighting 
loff  a  serious  lawsuit  brought  by  B&W. 

According  to  Bergman,  "It  took  Jeff  a 
long  time  to  come  out  and  decide  that  he 
wanted  to  tell  his  story.  He  used  to  say, 
'Lowell,  I  want  to  do  this,  but  I  need  sup- 
port. I  need  my  wife  there.  We  can't  do  it 
lyet,  because  Lucretia  is  not  there.'"  Wi- 
gand had  continued  to  keep  secrets  from 
her:  In  May,  the  Wigands  had  come  to 
•New  York  as  guests  of  60  Minutes.  It  was 
obvious  to  Bergman  that  Wigand  had  not 
told  Lucretia  that  he  intended  to  be  inter- 
viewed. "He  expected  me  to  explain  it  to 
her,"  Bergman  told  me.  All  summer  long 
'Wigand  debated  about  his  public  role,  and 
Lucretia  grew  increasingly  panicky.  Mean- 
while, he  continued  to  advise  Wilmer,  Cut- 
ler &  Pickering  regarding  Philip  Morris's 
i  suit  against  ABC.  He  was  even  asked  to 
I  testify  for  ABC  if  the  case  should  go  to 
1  court.  Bergman  read  his  name  on  a  wire- 
service  story.  "I  called  him  and  went  bal- 
listic! I  said,  'Do  you  understand  that 
B&W  will  now  go  to  court  to  keep  you 
■  from  testifying?  Soon  every  news  outlet  in 
'America  will  be  calling  you.'"  Bergman 
1  had  begun  to  corroborate  Wigand's  story 
from  the  taped  interview  he  had  made;  he 
knew  that  the  Merrell  Williams  B&W  doc- 
uments   supported    Wigand's    assertions 
about  addiction,  disease,  and  the  role  of 
various  individuals.  "I  wasn't  doing  a  per- 
sonality profile.  I  wanted  to  find  out  what 
he  knew  that  was  different." 

In  July,  Bergman  began  to  get  con- 


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Wigand 


cerned.  "I  could  see  right  up  front  that 
Jeff  was  going  to  wind  up  testifying. 
Philip  Morris  knew  about  him,  the  Justice 
Department  knew  about  him,  and  so  did 
the  F.D.A.  I  called  up  Ephraim  [Margolin, 
a  lawyer  friend  who  was  advising  Wigand 
by  this  time]  and  said,  'Your  client  may 
wind  up  with  a  court  order  not  to  speak. 
Let's  get  the  guy's  story  on-camera  and 
lock  it  up!'  Ephraim  had  my  verbal  under- 
standing that  we  wouldn't  run  it  until  he 
was  ready.  Jeff  was  worried  about  home- 
steading  his  house  in  case  he  lost  a  breach- 
of-contract  suit.  He  showed  up  in  New 
York  and  said,  'Ephraim  wants  you  to 
write  him  a  note.'  So  I  did."  The  note  stat- 
ed that  CBS  would  not  run  the  interview 
without  Wigand's  permission,  and  that 
they  would  reconsider  the  matter  on  Sep- 
tember 3.  It  was  a  harmless  exercise,  Mike 
Wallace  later  told  me  he  believed,  intend- 
ed to  keep  a  source  happy  and  calm. 

Bergman  told  me,  "I  knew  it  was  going 
to  take  months  to  check  out  what  he  had 
to  say.  And  I  thought,  Fuck!  If  he  is  going 
to  testify  in  the  ABC  case,  then  it  will  be 
out  there  on  Court  TV  in  October.  We 
have  their  key  witness,  and  we  can  run  his 
story  in  October  or  November.  I  had  al- 
ready yelled  and  screamed  about  him  list- 
ing his  name.  He  was  playing  his  control- 
freak  games.  I  said,  'Great,  you  want  to 
trust  these  people  at  ABC.  What  about 
this  talk  about  ABC  settling  the  lawsuit 
with  Philip  Morris?'  I  told  him,  'The  dif- 
ference between  ABC  and  CBS  is  that 
I  will  raise  holy  fucking  hell  if  anything 
happens  at  CBS.'" 

On  September  12,  Mike  Wallace  was 
asked  to  attend  a  meeting  with  Ellen 
Kaden,  the  CBS  general  counsel,  Berg- 
man, then  president  of  CBS  News  Eric 
Ober,  60  Minutes  executive  producer 
Don  Hewitt,  and  Phil  Scheffler,  Hewitt's 
second-in-command.  "I  think  we  have 
a  problem,"  Kaden  said,  and  used  the 
phrase  "tortious  interference,"  which  she 
said  involved  persuading  someone  to 
break  a  contract  with  another  party.  Be- 
cause Wigand  had  a  confidentiality  agree- 
ment with  B&W,  she  said,  CBS  could  be 
"at  a  grave,  grave  risk."  She  was  propos- 
ing something  unprecedented  in  the  histo- 
ry of  CBS  News— stopping  an  important 
story  in  midstream  for  fear  of  a  lawsuit 
that  hadn't  been  threatened.  Someone  at 
the  meeting  voiced  concern  about  an  as- 
pect of  the  story  that  showed  Andrew 
Tisch.  the  chairman  of  Lorillard  and  the 
son  of  CBS  chairman  Laurence  Tisch, 


208 


with  Thomas  Sandefur  swearing  beffe 
Congress  that  nicotine  was  not  addict  j. 
"How  do  you  expect  us  to  go  on  the  ■* 
with  a  piece  that  might  put  the  ch  r-  -■ 
man's  son  in  jail?"  someone  said.  Hew  I 
by  disposition  noisy  and  opinionated,  vj  ■ ' 
muted,  as  were  Ober  and  Wallace.  Hii-1- 
itt  later  recalled  that  he  had  had  no  - 
tention  of  "playing  cards  with  a  stacld 
deck."  He  advanced  none  of  the  F  t 
Amendment  arguments  considered  r  - 
tine,  such  as:  How  could  you  have  a  c  - 
fidentiality  agreement  when  there  w  I 
thousands  of  pages  of  supporting  do  I 
ments  on  the  Internet?  And  Hewitt  m;1;  ;>' 
no  offer  to  press  the  issue  with  his  be  I 
Larry  Tisch.  Bergman,  who  was  on    5 
way  to  London  to  interview  bat  exe  I 
tives,  was  told  to  cancel  the  trip. 

Don  Hewitt's  relationship  with  La  » ■ 
Tisch  soured  after  Tisch  got  cont-l  - 
of  CBS  in  1986.  "I  am  not  proud  ol  I  -1 
anymore,    but    Mike    Wallace,    Wal  • 
Cronkite,  and  I  were  the  cheerleaders  I 
Larry  buying  the  network,"  he  said.  "T: 
night  Tisch  bought  CBS,  we  were  all  '* 
at  our  friend  Mollie  Parnis's  slapping  h 
on  the  back."  A  week  later,  Hewitt  wt, 
to  see  him.  "I  said,  'Larry,  we  have  be.i  ■ 
pretty  good  friends,  and  I  need  a  favor 
said,  'You  have  handed  me  all  of  t  . 
money.  Tell  me  what  to  do  with  it.  Le  . 
me  to  a  good   financial   adviser.   W 
knows  better  than  you?'  I  got  the  bru  • 
off.  Later  I  heard  he  said,  'I  not  only  p 
that  son  of  a  bitch  all  that  money— nof  i 
he  wants  free  business  advice!' " 

The  relationship  between  Hewitt  a=     I 
Tisch,  who  are  both  73,  grew  icy,  acco*  ir> 
ing  to  Hewitt,  when  Tisch  realized  that 
could  have  no  editorial  influence  on   '  a 
Minutes— an  assertion  Tisch  denies.  In  fa    *' 
the  two  men  shared  certain  personal    :  i 
quirks:  Hewitt  was  as  voluble  as  Tis 
and,  like  his  new  boss,  had  a  desire  for 
spectability.  Hewitt's  peppery  letters  a 
messages  were  famous  in  the  city,  as  w ' 
Tisch's  pose  of  modest  conviviality.  A  fi    m 
years  after  Tisch  became  C.E.O.,  60  M^  ::. 
utes  produced  a  searing  report  on   t 
American  Israel  Public  Affairs  Commitl 
that  Tisch  didn't  like.  "He  stopped  talki 
to  me  at  that  point,"  Hewitt  recalled.  1  »a 
went  to  a  reception  that  Warren  Philli 
[publisher  of  The  Wall  Street  Journal]  h 
at  the  River  House,  a  room  full  of  peoj 
like  Punch  Sulzberger  and  Kay  Graham    & 
walked  in  and  said  to  Larry,  'Hey,  bo  1  ar<j 
how  are  you?'  He  said,  'Don't  you  "H<  ! 
boss"  me.'  He  turned  his  back  and  walk     • 
away!  We  next  did  a  story  on  Temf 
Mount  in  which  we  say  that  the  Jerusale 
police  got  out  of  hand,  and  somebody  te 

VANITY  FAIR /MAY  IS  I  >\ 


me  that  when  Larry  was  asked  about  it  his 
answer  was  'Don't  ask  me.  Ask  Horowitz 
and  Wallach,  the  two  self -hating  Jews  who 
changed  their  names.'  .  .  .  We  were  the 
most  profitable  broadcast  in  the  history  of 
television.  The  fucker  got  out  of  here  with 
all  that  money  only  because  we  kept  his 
company  afloat."  According  to  Tisch, 
"This  is  nonsense!  Jesus!  This  poor  fellow 
has  a  complex.  So  many  things  have  been 
attributed  to  me  that  I  never  said.  What 
would  I  care  what  Don  Hewitt's  last  name 
was  originally?" 

In  the  midst  of  the  furor  over  the  Tem- 
ple Mount  piece,  Hewitt  said  to  Tisch, 
"Larry,  you  are,  in  effect,  our  publisher. 
It  is  up  to  you  to  defend  us."  Tisch  an- 
swered, "I  am  not  your  publisher  and  I 
have  no  intention  of  being  your  publish- 
er." "That  episode  with  Temple  Mount 
unsettled  Larry,"  a  close  friend  of  his  re- 
called. "He  had  no  idea  that  as  the  new 
proprietor  of  CBS  News  he  had  to  re- 
spect his  news  division  and  their  editorial 
judgment." 

After  Tisch  took  over  CBS,  the  news 
division  was  stripped  of  a  good  deal  of  its 
power  and  reputation.  At  a  time  when 
ABC  was  expanding  its  news  operation, 
Tisch  cut  the  CBS  budget  drastically.  He 
sold  off  the  lucrative  CBS  record  compa- 
ny, refused  to  invest  in  cable,  and  was 
outbid  on  broadcast  rights  to  the  N.F.L. 
football  games  that  were  the  lead-in  to  60 
Minutes.  "You  have  to  understand,"  a 
friend  of  Tisch's  told  me,  "Larry  likes 
money.  Money  is  a  game  for  him!" 

The  relationship  between  CBS  and 
Tisch's  tobacco  company,  Lorillard,  be- 
came a  vexing  problem  for  the  news  divi- 
sion. According  to  someone  who  knows 
Tisch  well,  when  he  bought  Lorillard,  in 
1968,  he  viewed  it  only  as  a  potential  in- 
vestment. "Years  ago,  the  Tisch  family 
was  not  afraid  of  liability.  If  he  had  asked 
his  technical  people,  'Am  I  in  any  dan- 
ger?' he  would  have  gotten  the  typical  an- 
swer back:  'You  can't  prove  anything  in  a 
liability  case  since  the  surgeon  general 
forced  the  companies  to  put  a  warning  on 
the  packs.' "  Tisch  could  not  have  forecast 
then  the  sweeping  change  in  tort  litiga- 
tion, the  possibility  of  immense  jury 
awards.  There  was  no  imagining  in  1968 
how  medical  costs  would  soar  in  a  few 
years.  "None  of  this  was  on  the  horizon," 
Tisch  told  me.  "I  couldn't  tell  you  today 
whether  or  not  I  would  have  bought  Loril- 
lard 30  years  ago.  .  . ,  There  is  no  clear- 
cut  proof  about  addiction.  I  am  not  a  sci- 
entist. I  never  smoked.  I  take  a  drink,  but 
am  I  an  addict?  Liability  suits?  This  is  all 
pure  speculation.  I  hate  it  when  people 
tell  me  what  I  have  been  thinking." 

VANITY  FAIR /MAY  1996 


Lorillard  became  an  immense  cash  bo- 
nanza for  the  Loews  Corporation— the 
parent  company  controlled  by  Tisch  and 
his  brother,  Robert— earning  approximate- 
ly $700  million  a  year.  For  several  of 
Tisch's  friends,  a  key  to  his  personality 
can  be  found  in  the  controversy  that  tore 
apart  New  York  University  Medical  Cen- 
ter in  1989.  Tisch  was  the  chairman  of 
the  university's  board  of  trustees,  and  it 
was  believed  that  he  would  give  a  sub- 
stantial gift.  He  announced  that  he  and 
his  brother  would  donate  $30  million  but 
with  one  proviso:  the  hospital  would  have 
to  be  renamed  in  their  honor— a  proposal 
which  caused  an  outcry  in  the  press. 
"Naming  a  hospital  after  tobacco  men  is 
just  too  ironic,"  Dr.  William  Cahan,  a 
prominent  surgeon  at  Sloan -Kettering, 
said  in  May  1989.  "Around  town,  the 
University  Hospital  is  becoming  known 
as  Lorillard  General."  But  the  hospital 
board  gave  in  to  Tisch's  demand.  Accord- 
ing to  Tisch,  "There  was  not  a  great  deal 
of  negative  feeling.  I  only  received  one  or 
two  letters  about  it.  I  thought  the  family 
was  doing  the  right  thing." 

Lowell  Bergman  arrived  at  the  Wi- 
gands'  red  brick  house  late  in  the  af- 
ternoon on  September  15.  He  was  deeply 
concerned  about  the  New  York  meeting 
and  its  ominous  implications.  His  inner 
radar  told  him  something  was  way  off  in 
the  CBS  decision,  but  he  was  a  corporate 
employee.  If  he  stormed  out  in  a  rage  of 
protest,  Wigand  would  be  left  unprotected. 
In  the  wake  of  ABC's  recent  settlement  in 
the  Philip  Morris  suit,  Wigand  felt  doubly 
vulnerable  and  exposed,  because  his  name 
was  on  the  witness  list.  He  said,  "They're 
going  to  sue  me,  and  I  don't  have  any 
money."  During  dinner  that  night,  Berg- 
man received  a  phone  call  from  Jonathan 
Sternberg,  a  CBS  lawyer.  "Leave  that 
house  right  now,"  he  told  him. 

At  the  end  of  September,  Bergman 
spent  a  long  weekend  cutting  a  version 
of  the  B&W  expose.  "I  wanted  to  show 
Mike,  Don,  and  Eric  Ober  exactly  what  it 
was  CBS  News  wanted  to  kill."  Bergman 
screened  it  for  the  three  men  that  Mon- 
day. He  recalled,  "Hewitt  was  jumping 
up  and  down,  yelling,  'Pulitzer  Prize!'" 

Soon  after,  Bergman  ran  into  Phil 
Scheffler  in  the  hall.  The  show's  managing 
editor  looked  somber.  "All  he  said  to  me 
was  'Stop!'  in  a  loud,  booming  voice,"  re- 
ferring to  Bergman's  reporting  on  Wigand. 

In  the  research  files  of  Nexis,  the  infor- 
mation-retrieval service,  there  are  220 
newspaper  and  magazine  stories  that 
have  mentioned  "tortious  interference" 


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209 


Wigand 


since  CBS  News  made  the  decision  not 
to  allow  the  Wigand  segment  to  go  on 
the  air.  It  is  commonly  believed  that 
Tisch,  who  was  in  the  midst  of  talks  with 
Westinghouse  concerning  a  merger  with 
CBS,  would  not  entertain  the  possibility 
of  the  threat  of  a  tobacco-company  law- 
suit. Tisch  had  witnessed  personally  the 
consequences  of  tortious  interference. 
In  1983  he  had  been  brought  onto  the 
board  of  Getty  Oil  by  Gordon  Getty. 
Several  months  later  he  and  Getty  toasted 
a  bid  from  Pennzoil  to  acquire  Getty— a 
bid  that  would  later  be  topped  by  Texa- 
co. Pennzoil  sued  in  a  famous  case  in 
which  Tisch  testified,  but  Texaco  was 
forced  into  temporary  bankruptcy  when 
Pennzoil  won  a  record-breaking  settle- 
ment. Still,  Tisch  denies  that  this  experi- 
ence had  anything  to  do  with  the  CBS 
decision.  "What  I  went  through  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  B&W  episode.  I 
read  about  it  in  the  paper,  the  same  way 
you  did,"  Tisch  told  me. 

It  was  not  widely  known  that  a  com- 
plex financial  deal  was  going  on  at  Loril- 
lard  about  the  time  Bergman  was  trying 
to  salvage  the  Wigand  interview.  At  the 
end  of  1994,  the  Federal  Trade  Commis- 
sion had  ruled  that  B&W  had  to  sell  off 
six  of  its  discount,  or  value-brand,  ciga- 
rettes—Montclair,  Malibu,  Crown's,  Spe- 
cial 10's,  Riviera,  and  Bull  Durham— for 
anti-trust  reasons.  Lorillard  was  a  logical 
buyer  because,  although  it  controlled 
close  to  8  percent  of  the  tobacco  market 
with  brands  such  as  Kent,  Newport,  and 
True,  it  was  decidedly  weak  in  the  area  of 
discount  cigarettes.  The  potential  acquisi- 
tion of  Montclair  and  the  other  brands 
would  round  out  the  Lorillard  product 
line  and  increase  cigarette  sales  by  more 
than  five  billion  units.  While  the  acquisi- 
tion was  being  studied  inside  Lorillard, 
Westinghouse  was  negotiating  for  a  merg- 
er with  CBS,  and  speculation  within  60 
Minutes  was  focused  on  the  effect  a  possi- 
ble lawsuit  would  have  on  the  merger. 

By  mid-October,  the  Liggett  Group 
believed  it  was  the  high  bidder  for  the 
B&W  cigarettes,  according  to  a  source 
close  to  the  case.  Just  before  the  deal 
was  ready  to  close,  the  general  counsel 
for  Liggett  suddenly  could  not  get  the 
B&W  lawyers  on  the  telephone.  He  was 
stunned  when  he  discovered  that  B&W 
had  sold  the  cigarette  brands  to  Loril- 
lard. George  Lowy,  an  attorney  who  rep- 
resented B&W  in  the  divestiture,  has 
said,  "Lorillard's  deal  was  financially  su- 
perior." Liggett  is  considering  bringing 


legal  action  against  B&W.  The  F.T.C.  fil- 
ing on  the  sale  is  unusual;  some  nine 
pages  have  been  blanked  out.  The  price 
of  purchase  and  number  of  bidders  are 
deleted.  The  deal  was  announced  in  late 
November,  three  weeks  after  60  Minutes 
killed  its  original  story.  But  Tisch  recent- 
ly told  me,  "I  don't  know  anything  about 
it.  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  Lorillard.  I 
was  spending  my  full  time  at  CBS." 
Ironically,  it  is  possible  that  the  suit 
Liggett  may  bring  would  be  for  tortious 
interference. 

In  November,  no  one  at  60  Minutes 
was  aware  of  the  shuffle  that  was  going 
on  behind  the  scenes  with  the  B&W 
brands.  "I  knew  all  kinds  of  litigation 
was  possible,"  Bergman  told  me.  "I  kept 
saying  to  people,  'You  are  making  news 
decisions  in  a  corporate  atmosphere  where 
there  is  no  appetite  for  this  kind  of  sto- 
ry. There  is  possible  perjury  on  the  part 
of  the  son  of  the  owner  at  the  same  time 
that  the  owner  is  trying  to  sell  an  asset 
at  a  premium  price  where  the  conse- 
quences of  the  story  might  affect  the 
stock  price.  Think  how  history  might 
record  this!'" 

By  brushing  against  Big  Tobacco, 
Tisch,  Wigand,  Bergman,  Hewitt, 
and  Wallace  were  all  soon  lost  in  a  thick- 
et of  hidden  dangers.  Wigand  was  still 
oblivious  to  the  gathering  perplexities  and 
the  corporate  forces  arrayed  against  him. 
As  far  as  Wigand  was  concerned,  said 
Bergman,  "I  was  the  face  of  60  Minutes. 
I  was  there  holding  his  hand  when  his 
wife  freaked  out."  As  for  Bergman,  he 
had  worked  for  a  year  and  a  half  to  bring 
in  one  of  the  most  important  stories  of 
his  career,  and  by  doing  so  he  had  put  his 
employer  and  his  future  in  jeopardy. 
Hewitt  and  Wallace  were  millionaires 
many  times  over,  yet  their  public  acqui- 
escence to  CBS's  reluctance  to  air  their 
story  threatened  to  tarnish  their  distin- 
guished careers. 

"In  the  end,  I  made  the  call  to  Wigand 
to  tell  him  that  management  had  made 
the  decision  to  kill  the  show,"  Mike  Wal- 
lace told  me.  "Lowell  did  not  have  the 
heart  to  do  it."  Bergman  was  distraught: 
"My  work  depends  on  my  word.  We  had 
never  indicated  to  Jeff  that  there  would 
be  any  problem."  The  decision  to  kill  the 
segment,  Wallace  said,  marked  "the  first 
time  in  28  years  that  Don  and  I  saw 
something  differently."  Hewitt,  according 
to  60  Minutes  sources,  was  attempting 
both  to  please  the  authorities  and  to  act 
like  a  newsman,  a  position  that  became 
known  as  "the  Hewitt  straddle"  in  the  of- 
fice. However  angry  Wallace  was,  he  told 


210 


friends  he  was  too  old  to  quit  on  prir 
pie,  and  he  did  not  understand  why  Hf 
itt  was  siding  with  management. 

Hewitt  called  a  meeting  of  the  sti 
"This  is  not  a  First  Amendment  issu 
he  said,  but  several  people  in  the  ro( 
strongly  disagreed  with  him.  "Gene 
counsel  believes  we  have  broken  the  la> 
Suddenly  Mike  Wallace  burst  in  a 
screamed  at  Hewitt,  "I  understand  y 
have  just  said  we  should  not  have  p' 
sued  the  story!"— which  Hewitt  had  not 
fact  said.  "Who  told  you  that?  If  that' 
what  you  think,  I  am  quitting!"  Hew 
said  and  stormed  out  of  the  room. 

In  November,  Hewitt  decided  to  ruH 
version  of  the  B&W  story  without  a  V 
gand  interview.  Wallace  prepared  a  neJ 
piece  for  the  Friday  before  the  show  w; 
to  run.  It  was  Wallace's  intention  : 
broadcast  management's  decision,  b 
when  he  saw  the  show,  he  realized  1 
work  had  been  cut  by  the  CBS  lawye 
In  the  hall  he  confronted  Ellen  KadeJ 
"Did  you  tell  Larry  Tisch  about  the  V< 
gand  interview?  Is  that  why  the  piece  wJ 
killed?"  Kaden  denied  it.  Wallace  was  I 
lentless.  "It  doesn't  make  sense.  You  aj 
his  general  counsel.  Why  would  you  it 
have  told  him?"  Wallace  later  recall 
that  Kaden  started  to  cry,  a  story  she  hti 
denied.  Kaden  had  sought  advice  from  . 
outside  counsel,  First  Amendment  sj[ 
cialist  Cameron  DeVore,  but  she  refus' 
to  show  Wallace  any  of  the  memos 
had  written  her.  One  former  CBS  exec 
tive  surmised  that  no  one  at  CBS  ma 
agement  was  willing  to  take  responsibili 
for  killing  the  Wigand  interview,  and  K 
den  was  left  to  take  the  fall. 

Hewitt  told  a  New  York  Times  report 
that  the  new  version  was  "better,  I  thin 
than  what  we  had  before."  When  an  A 
sociated  Press  reporter  called  Bergm; 
for  comment,  Bergman  told  him  angri 
"The  versions  are  apples  and  oranges 
Wallace  was  enraged  when  he  read 
Times  editorial  accusing  the  program 
betraying  the  legacy  of  Edward  R.  Mi 
row.  "I  don't  know  if  things  will  ever  { 
back  to  normal,"  one  correspondent  sai 
"The  fact  is,"  Wallace  told  me,  "that  Dc 
and  I  had  a  difference  of  opinion  abo 
whether  we  should  or  should  not  push 
get  this  thing  on  the  air.  It  turned  blooc 
and  icy  from  time  to  time." 

Except  for  Wallace,  not  one  corr 
spondent  picked  up  the  telephone  to  a 
Bergman.  Wallace  and  Morley  Safi 
were  raging  at  each  other.  Safer  even  i 
sued  a  statement  to  the  press  attackir 
Wallace  and  Bergman  for  making  a 
agreement  with  Wigand.  The  feud  at  t 
Minutes  offered  a  rare  view  inside  tl 

VANITY  FAIR /MAY  19' 


'rhere  will  be  a  third  act,  and  Jeff  Wigaric 
be  unmasked''  John  Scanlon  told  me. 


»sychodynamics  of  TV  news.  "It  became 
ioisonous  and  contagious,  with  many 
leople  wanting  to  hang  Lowell,"  CBS 
iroducer  George  Crile  said.  In  a  fit  of 
rique,  Don  Hewitt  told  several  staffers 
o  distance  themselves  from  Bergman. 
loon  a  reaction  developed  within  the  of- 
ice.  The  staff  felt  as  if  it  were  living  in  a 
totemkin  village.  Their  very  integrity 
ested  on  their  ability  to  tell  a  story  accu- 
ately,  despite  confidentiality  agreements, 
illen  Kaden  would  later  tell  friends  that 
the  was  furious  that  Wigand's  identity 
jiad  been  leaked  to  the  Daily  News.  She 
flamed  60  Minutes  for  it  and  for  the  at- 
tacks against  her  in  the  press.  It  was  Ka- 
den's  belief  that  she  was  only  doing  her 
tob,  trying  to  prevent  CBS  from  entering 
jhe  nightmare  of  tobacco  litigation  that 
JVBC  had  endured.  She  later  recalled 
learning  of  the  million  pages  of  red  pa- 
per that  Philip  Morris  had  delivered  to 
)\BC— the  color  red  could  not  be  photo- 
copied—and noted  with  alarm  that  a  Vir- 
ginia judge  had  ruled  that  this  was  not  an 
abusive  tactic. 

In  Washington  for  an  interview  with 
President  Clinton  in  mid-December,  five 
60  Minutes  correspondents  rehearsed  in  a 
hotel  room.  Everyone  agreed  on  areas 
and  questions,  but  when  the  president 
arrived,  the  reporters  started  shouting 
as  if  it  were  a  free-for-all.  Mike  Wallace 
demanded  of  one,  "Why  did  you  steal  all 
of  my  lines?"  The  issue  was  Clinton,  but 
the  undercurrent  was  lethal,  a  shared  un- 
derstanding that  tobacco  and  all  its  impli- 
cations were  driving  them  apart.  Soon 
after,  the  news  of  the  CBS  sale  to  Wes- 
tinghouse  was  announced.  Larry  Tisch's 
Loews  Corporation  made  nearly  $1  bil- 
lion on  the  sale.  CBS  general  counsel 
Ellen  Kaden  made  close  to  $5  million. 
And  Eric  Ober  would  receive  around  $4 
million  from  severance  and  stock  options. 

4  A  t  Christmastime,  I  was  disinvited 
il from  going  to  Lucretia's  father's 
place,"  said  Wigand.  The  debacle  at  60 
Minutes  was  all  that  was  needed  to  make 
their  marriage  collapse.  A  few  weeks  ear- 
lier, in  late  November,  Wigand  was  leav- 
ing school  when  he  noticed  a  car  coming 
at  him  across  the  parking  lot.  "I  thought 
it  was  the  end,"  he  later  told  me.  In  fact, 


it  was  another  subpoena  from 
B&W,  demanding  that  he  ap- 
pear in  court  for  violating  his 
confidentiality  agreement.  Soon 
after,  he  flew  to  Mississippi  to 
give  a  deposition  in  the  state's 
case.  "Are  you  aware  that  when 
you  get  back  to  Kentucky  you 
could  very  well  go  to  jail?"  his 
lawyer  Ephraim  Margolin,  a 
criminal-defense  expert,  report- 
edly asked  him.  "I  better  think 
about  this,"  Wigand  said.  That  afternoon 
Wigand  was  very  late  arriving  at  the  one- 
room  courthouse  in  Pascagoula.  Approx- 
imately 15  lawyers  from  the  tobacco 
companies  were  waiting,  betting  that 
he  would  not  show  up.  Wigand  took 
some  time  to  make  up  his  mind.  "Fuck 
it.  Let's  do  it,"  he  finally  said  to  Mar- 
golin. It  was  the  real  beginning  of  his 
new  life,  but  Wigand  worried  about  Lu- 
cretia.  "She  didn't  understand  what  I  was 
doing.  All  she  cared  about  was  that  it 
disrupted  her  economic  system." 

i\  V  7~e  were  a  quiet  little  company  be- 
W  fore  all  this  happened,"  an  execu- 
tive for  B&W's  Kool  brand  tells  me  on  a 
plane  ride  to  Louisville.  "Then  we  wound 
up  on  page  one."  I  ask  him  the  standard 
question  in  Tobacco  Land:  "Do  you  want 
your  children  to  smoke?"  He  responds  ir- 
ritably, "I  see  where  you  are  going  with 
this.  You  are  going  to  say  that  an  un- 
named Kool  spokesman  doesn't  want  his 
daughter  to  smoke.  ...  I  think  tobacco 
has  been  singled  out  unfairly." 


IV 

The  Attack 

In  late  November,  the  litigator  Stanley 
Arkin,  one  of  more  than  a  dozen 
lawyers  working  for  B&W  to  head  off 
the  Justice  Department's  investigation 
into  the  tobacco  industry,  recommended 
that  B&W  hire  public-relations  man 
John  Scanlon  and  Terry  Lenzner,  the  for- 
mer Watergate  deputy  counsel  who  is  the 
head  of  Investigative  Group  Inc.,  a  firm 
that  specializes  in  legal  work  for  corpo- 
rate takeovers.  Since  his  days  as  a  liberal 


COMPANY-LINE  MAN 
Kendrick  Wells,  a  B&W  attorney,  denied 
that  the  minutes  of  a  health-related  meeting 
in  Vancouver  were  improperly  altered. 


Republican  lawyer,  Lenzner  has  traveled 
philosophically  from  being  someone  who 
out  of  principle  forced  the  Nixon  admin- 
istration to  fire  him  to  being  an  ambi- 
tious investigator  in  his  50s  who  would 
like  to  compete  with  Jules  Kroll,  a  lead- 
er in  the  field.  Like  Arkin,  Lenzner  is 
attracted  to  the  game  of  big-time  corpo- 
rate litigation,  but,  according  to  several 
former  partners,  his  business  has  suffered 
recently.  Lenzner's  assignment  was  to 
prepare  a  lengthy  dossier  that  B&W 
could  use  to  torpedo  Wigand's  reputa- 
tion with  Jimmie  Warren,  the  innovative 
Justice  Department  prosecutor  running 
the  investigation  into  the  tobacco  execu- 
tives at  Central  Justice,  the  elite  unit  of 
the  Justice  Department  which  monitors 
national  policies.  "Wigand  is  the  major 
witness  against  them  in  the  federal  grand 
jury  in  both  Washington  and  New  York," 
John  Scanlon  told  me. 

Scanlon  and  Arkin  had  worked  to- 
gether before.  In  1989  they  volunteered 
to  help  Covenant  House,  a  shelter  for 
teenage  runaways  in  New  York,  defend 
Father  Bruce  Ritter,  the  director,  against 
sexual-  and  financial-misconduct  allega- 
tions—an ironic  assignment  for  Scanlon, 
who  at  one  time  had  wanted  to  be  a 
priest.  As  part  of  the  public-relations 
campaign,  Covenant  House  held  a  press 
conference  in  which  confidential  infor- 
mation about  Ritter's  26-year-old  male 
accuser  was  made  public— a  classic  de- 
stroy-the-accuser  technique.  According 
to  Newsday,  the  ploy  backfired,  however. 


VANITY  FAIR  /MAY  1996 


211 


\\  Lgand 


in  a  groundswell  of  revulsion  from  New 
York  social  workers  and  resulted  in 
more  than  five  other  boys'  coming  for- 
ward to  make  similar  accusations  against 
Father  Ritter. 

Scanlon  is  the  foremost  practitioner 
of  what  he  calls  "guerrilla  P.R."  For 
columnist  Murray  Kempton,  Scanlon  is 
this  generation's  Roy  Cohn— "a  man 
proud  of  his  infamies."  During  the  Mc- 
Carthy period,  Roy  Cohn  was  consid- 
ered a  master  of  the  art  of  using  false 
statements  and  exaggerations  to  impugn 
someone's  reputation.  As  a  young  man, 
Scanlon  was  a  passionate  defender  of 
left-wing  causes,  as  far  from  the  ethics  of 
Cohn  as  it  is  possible  to  get.  As  he  has 
gotten  older,  he  has  developed  expensive 
tastes;  he  owns  a  million-dollar  house  in 
the  Hamptons  and  another  retreat  in  Ire- 
land. Twenty  years  ago  he  began  to 
build  a  business  in  corporate  public  rela- 
tions. At  first  Scanlon's  campaigns  were 
a  model  of  corporate  responsibility:  he 
helped  create  the  gentle  Mobil  ads  in  the 
lower  corner  of  The  New  York  Times's 
op-ed  page  in  the  1970s.  His  fees  have 
always  been  high— he  now  charges  $350 
an  hour— but  his  clients  became  increas- 
ingly controversial.  He  represented  both 
Philip  Morris  and  Lorillard  in  the  land- 
mark case  of  the  late  Rose  Cipollone. 
whose  husband  sued,  arguing  that  her 
death  had  been  related  to  cigarette 
smoking. 

Scanlon's  friends  do  not  pass  judgment 
publicly  on  his  clients,  although  in  private 
many  are  strongly  critical.  "Loyalty  is  the 
vice  of  the  New  York  establishment," 
columnist  Liz  Smith  explained.  For  some 
reporters,  Scanlon  is  an  unreliable  apolo- 
gist. For  others  he  is  a  bon  vivant  whose 
motivations  are  not  so  different  from  Jef- 
frey Wigand's  when  he  signed  up  to  work 
for  B&W.  (Scanlon  has  acted  as  a  consul- 
tant for  this  magazine,  but  is  on  a  mutu- 
ally agreed-upon  leave  of  absence  because 
of  his  relationship  with  B&W.) 

Scanlon  is  part  of  the  social  network 
of  prominent  New  Yorkers  with  country 
houses  in  the  Hamptons.  He  occasionally 


hops  a  ride  on  a  helicopter  owned  by  fi- 
nancier Pete  Peterson;  the  other  passen- 
gers are  Don  Hewitt  and  his  wife,  Mari- 
lyn Berger.  Very  often  on  Sunday  morn- 
ings, Scanlon,  Peterson,  and  Hewitt  have 
met  for  a  catch-up  conversation  at  the 
Candy  Kitchen,  a  restaurant  in  Bridge- 
hampton.  Scanlon's  clients  find  this  ac- 
cess attractive. 

B&W's  campaign  against  Wigand  sur- 
faced in  late  December,  when  a  Washing- 
ton Post  reporter  phoned  the  office  of 
Richard  Scruggs  in  Pascagoula,  Missis- 
sippi, and  asked  for  a  comment  on  Wi- 
gand's alleged  history  of  spousal  abuse 
and  shoplifting  as  well  as  on  his  contra- 
dictory statements  regarding  fire  safety 
and  cigarettes.  Scruggs,  a  law-school 
classmate  of  Michael  Moore,  the  attor- 
ney general  of  Mississippi,  made  a  for- 
tune as  an  architect  of  the  plaintiffs'  suit 
against  the  asbestos  companies  in  1991. 
He  flies  a  Lear  jet  and  has  an  estate  in 
Pascagoula  near  his  childhood  home.  As 
one  of  the  chief  lawyers  representing 
Mississippi's  case  against  the  tobacco 
companies,  he  has  taken  an  interest  in 
Wigand  as  a  bonus  witness  and  has  be- 
come his  personal  lawyer,  working  pro 
bono  at  the  invitation  of  Ephraim  Mar- 
golin. Scruggs  met  Wigand  in  late  Octo- 
ber. "I  was  astonished  when  he  told  me 
his  story,"  he  recalled.  Until  he  heard 
from  The  Washington  Post,  he  told  me, 
"I  had  never  been  engaged  in  a  case  in- 
volving a  smear." 

From  Key  West,  Scruggs  called  Wi- 
gand, who  was  in  Washington  at  the  Jus- 
tice Department.  "Jeff  was  very,  very  up- 
set," Scruggs  recalled.  On  the  telephone, 
Wigand  gave  Scruggs  his  account  of  the 
"abuse"  and  "shoplifting"  episodes,  but 
still  Scruggs  realized  that  he  had  a  poten- 
tial catastrophe  on  his  hands.  There  was 
nothing  that  would  be  admissible  in  a 
court,  but  Scruggs  dreaded  the  sound 
bite  "Wigand  is  a  wife  beater"  and  knew 
it  could  potentially  scare  off  the  Justice 
Department.  "There  is  no  bigger  lie  than 
a  half-truth,"  he  later  told  me.  Scruggs 
knew  Wigand  had  few  close  friends,  and 
was  concerned  about  his  growing  isola- 
tion. Wigand  had  shut  himself  in  his  bed- 
room for  16  hours.  He  believed  he  would 
lose  his  job  because  of  The  Washington 


Scan 


Post.  Later,  Scruggs  would  say,  "Jeff 
despondent.  I  was  worried  he  would  I 
ravel,  and  I  didn't  know  what  to  do. 

In  New  York,  it  was  obvious  to  N 
Wallace  and  Lowell  Bergman  th;  'a< 
calculated  attempt  was  being  madt  o 
ruin    Wigand's    reputation.    Over 
Christmas  holidays,  Scanlon  took  I 
Hewitt  aside  at  a  party  at  the  wi 
Avery  Corman's  and  told  him  that 
gand  was  "a  bad  guy."  Hewitt  and  Si 
Ion  were  not  just  longtime  friends:  Si 
Ion  had  advised  CBS  during  the  1 
case  brought  against  the  network 
Mike  Wallace  by  General  William  Wt 
moreland  in  1985.  For  weeks  on  the  1 
copter,  Scanlon  bombarded  Hewitt 
the  Petersons  with  allegations  against 
gand— he  was  a  shoplifter,  a  wife  bea 
Hewitt  was  at  first  strongly  influen  i 
by  Scanlon,  he  later  recalled.  "I  hear  i 
Wigand  is  a  bad  guy,"  Hewitt  told  \ 
lace.  Scanlon  had  temporarily  succee 
in  diverting  the  story  of  B&W  to  a  na 
tive  about  Wigand's  personality.  Moi 
earlier,  Bergman  had  run  a  crime  ch 
on  Wigand,  but  since  he  had  not  b^ 
convicted  of  anything,  neither  incidi 
had  shown  up  on  the  computer.  In  J 
uary,  Scanlon  visited  Wallace  at  60  A 
utes.  "He  sat  in  my  office  and  told 
'Mike,  don't  worry— B&W  is  not  gc 
to  sue  you,'"  Wallace  recalled.  "Tha 
when    I    knew   John   was  working 
them."  Wallace  and  Bergman  motiva, 
Hewitt    by     stoking    his    competi1 
streak.  "Dateline  is  going  to  put  Wigi 
on  the  air,  and  he  is  our  guy,"  Walll  t 
recalled  telling  Hewitt.  "How  can  weit 
our  guy  appear  on  NBC?" 

Scanlon  made  a  blunder  by  overpla> 
his  hand.  Hewitt's  and  Wallace's  senst 
fair  play  was  aroused.  They  are  known 
never  allowing  their  personal  historic; 
get  in  the  way  of  a  story,  but  after  we 
of  Scanlon's  hammering  at  Wigand's  ci 
ibility,  his  strategy  backfired  complet 
Hewitt  later  told  me.  Once,  on  the  H 
copter,  Hewitt  had  told  him,  "John,  ; 
are  full  of  shit."  Hewitt  later  remark 
"What  I  should  have  said  to  him  > 
'Look,  John,  if  you  want  to  go  out  j 
work  for  tobacco  companies  defend 
people's  right  to  smoke,  more  power 
you.  The  next  time  someone  calls  you  ; 


ntd 


I  used  to  come  home  tied  in  a  knot.  My  kids  woi 


Olll 


k*,~.  *»<*_■.- -.n 


you  to  break  a  guy's  legs,  tell  them  to 
re  a  capo.' "  By  mid-January,  Hewitt  had 
iade  up  his  mind  that  Scanlon's  cam- 
gn  against  Wigand  had  to  be  part  of 
ly  coming  60  Minutes  report.  "Mike  and 
never  even  discussed  whether  or  not  we 

tiould  report  it,"  Hewitt  said. 

"John  was  feeding  me  stuff  all  the 
Ime,"  Hewitt  later  told  me.  "He  called 
ne  and  told  me  the  man  was  on  a  watch 
st  at  the  liquor  store.  ...  He  sent  me 
vo  depositions  done  by  Wigand.  One  of 
icm,  to  the  best  of  my  knowledge,  was 

«  nder  lock  and  key  and  sealed.  ...  I  kept 

iijging  him  on.  He  was  my  pipeline  to 

Irown  &  Williamson." 

Jne  night  in  January,  I  telephoned 
Scanlon  at  his  house  in  Sag  Harbor. 
yWhat  can  you  tell  me  about  Wigand?"  I 
liked.  Scanlon  mentioned  the  contradic- 
I  ons  in  Wigand's  testimony  about  fire- 
tfife  cigarettes,  then  warmed  to  his 
ineme:  Wigand,  he  said,  "had  been  ar- 
|;sted  for  wife  beating"  and  had  been 
^shoplifting  for  a  long  period  of  time." 
lie  continued,  "And  then  there's  about 
it  5  instances  which  he  filed  .  .  .  insurance 
llaims  on  lost  luggage  and  hotel  rooms 
ilroken  into.  .  .  .  He's  got  a  very,  very 
!haky  record."  It  seemed  obvious  that  he 
fi/as  recalling  the  details  of  a  written 
linemo,  although  at  that  time  I  did  not 
*now  of  the  500 -page  dossier. 

"Who  has  dug  this  up?"  I  asked.  "Ter- 
liy  Lenzner's  group?" 

"Yes,"  he  said.  "They're  the  investiga- 
tors for  B&W.  ...  I  have  been  hired  to 
ito  what  I  always  do,  which  is  to  try  to 
find  out  what  the  story  is  and  broker  the 
Hory.  and  I'm  convinced  that  without  a 
[ingle  iota  of  doubt  he  is  a  liar." 

I  asked  Scanlon  if  he  had  ever  met 
ijVigand  or  posed  these  allegations  to 
uim.  "No.  I've  read  his  testimony.  I 
i[lon't  have  to  ask  him  the  questions." 
ijjcanlon  paused.  "You  know,  I  have  seen 
Jape  in  which  he  says  that  he  was  an 
Olympic  wrestler  and  a  Vietnam  fighter 
»ilot."  I  asked  him  if  I  could  see  the 
ape.  "Only  off  the  record,  and  we 
vouldn't  want  it  tied  to  us.  We  would 
lave  to  have  that  firm  agreement,"  he 
.aid.  I  said  I  could  not  enter  into  such  an 
irrangement.  "We  may  not  be  able  to 
-alk,  then,  because  what  they  are  trying 
o  say  is  that  this  is  a  smear  campaign, 
ind  it  is  not  a  smear  campaign."  I  said  I 
vas  troubled  by  the  implications  of  our 
conversation,  the  way  the  people  who 
lad  compiled  the  allegations  about  Wi- 
;and  were  disseminating  them  to  destroy 
lis  credibility.  "Of  course  they  are," 
kanlon  said.  "I  mean,  he  is  an  incredible 

'ANITY  FAIR /MAY  1996 


witness.  Why  wouldn't  they?  I  mean,  if 
you  liad  somebody  testifying  against  you, 
and  you  knew  they  weren't  credible, 
what  would  you  do?" 

V 

The  Counterattack 

The  investigator  Jack  Palladino  met  Wi- 
gand at  his  house  on  the  Colonel  An- 
derson Parkway.  In  the  world  of  hardball 
litigation,  Palladino  and  his  wife,  Sandra 
Sutherland,  are  the  Nick  and  Nora  Charles 
of  modern  criminal  investigation.  Palladi- 
no wears  $2,000  suits  and  splashy  Balenci- 
aga  ties  and  speaks  with  a  rapid-fire  polish 
that  hints  of  his  childhood  in  Boston.  At 
one  time  Palladino  wanted  to  be  a  psychi- 
atrist, and  he  has  a  persuasive  narrative 
gift.  Sutherland  is  the  daughter  of  an  Aus- 
tralian academic;  her  strength  as  an  inves- 
tigator is  an  intuitive  sense  of  when  some- 
thing is  amiss.  They  operate  from  the  for- 
mer I.  Magnin  mansion  in  San  Francisco; 
they  investigated  the  People's  Temple  in 
Jonestown  in  the  1980s  and  ran  the  coun- 
terattack against  American  Express's  1988 
attempt  to  smear  the  banker  Edmond 
Safra.  They  worked  as  well  for  the  Clinton 
campaign  in  1992,  investigating  accusa- 
tions of  Clinton's  infidelities.  The  irony 
was  that  the  couple  usually  work  for  Stan- 
ley Arkin,  but  this  time  they  were  on  the 
other  side.  "I  think  Arkin  would  explain 
our  working  for  Wigand  as  my  60s  radical 
sympathies,"  Palladino  said. 

He  was  hired  by  Richard  Scruggs  to 
mount  a  counterattack,  to  disprove  the 
charges  in  the  dossier  that  B&W  had 
hired  Scanlon  to  disseminate  to  reporters. 
Palladino  and  his  staff  of  seven  investiga- 
tors had  to  move  quickly.  An  anonymous 
tip  had  already  been  sent  to  Joe  Ward  of 
the  Louisville  Courier-Journal  and  to 
Doug  Proffitt,  a  TV  personality  in  Louis- 
ville who  specializes  in  tabloid  investiga- 
tions. The  letter  to  Ward  had  a  "gossipy 
tone,"  Ward  told  me,  and  said  that  Wi- 
gand had  beat  up  his  wife.  Ward  immedi- 
ately suspected  that  it  had  come  from  the 
tobacco  industry,  and  he  chose  to  investi- 
gate further.  Ward  told  me  that  even  the 
police  report  had  no  context  that  he  was 
comfortable  with.  Doug  Proffitt,  however, 
was  less  concerned.  On  the  evening  he 
was  preparing  a  report  on  Wigand's  mari- 
tal problems,  I  telephoned  him.  He  sound- 
ed elated  that  he  had  a  scoop.  "I  got  an 
anonymous  tip  which  I'm  sure  came  from 
the  tobacco  industry.  .  .  .  There's  a  side  of 
this  man  that  has  never  been  told  before." 

Palladino  met  Wigand  after  Proffitt 
had  aired  his  report.  He  was  surprised,  he 


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213 


Wigand 


told  me  later,  that  Wigand  asked  him  to 
explain  to  his  22-year-old  daughter,  Gret- 
chen,  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  exact- 
ly how  much  was  at  stake.  "He  was  in  a 
paradoxical  situation.  At  a  time  when  the 
anti-tobacco  forces  wanted  to  make  him  a 
hero,  he  had  isolated  himself  from  every- 
one, including  his  own  family,"  Palladino 
said.  "Lock  up  all  these  papers  and  diaries 
before  someone  steals  them,"  Palladino 
told  him  when  he  visited  his  home  office. 
When  Palladino  relayed  to  Wigand  the 
charges  about  him  being  detailed  in  phone 
calls  to  reporters,  Wigand  responded  an- 
grily, "What  kind  of  bullshit  is  this?"  Once 
Palladino  realized  what  was  happening  to 
Wigand,  he  instructed  his  entire  staff  to 
put  aside  whatever  they  were  working  on 
and  check  every  aspect  of  Wigand's  past. 
"This  is  a  war,"  Palladino  said. 

When  Wigand  meets  me  in  the  Hyatt 
coffee  shop  on  Saturday  morning, 
January  27,  he  is  carrying  a  stack  of 
newspapers.  The  testimony  from  his  dep- 
osition against  B&W  is  page-one  news 
for  The  Courier-Journal,  The  Lexington 
Herald-Leader,  and  The  New  York  Times. 
"You  were  on  CNN  this  morning,  Jeff," 
his  security  man  says.  "I  bet  you  never 
thought,  growing  up  on  Bruckner  Boule- 
vard, that  you  would  wind  up  on  page 
one  of  the  Times, "  I  say.  "That  is  bullshit," 
he  says.  "I  don't  care  about  front  pages." 
I  am  flying  with  Wigand  to  New  York, 
where  he  will  be  interviewed  again  for  60 
Minutes.  "Wallace  and  Hewitt  outed  me, 
all  right?"  he  says  angrily— a  reference  to 
the  fact  that  his  identity  was  leaked  to  the 
New  York  Daily  News— as  we  walk  toward 
the  Hyatt  parking  garage.  "And  I  intend 
to  tell  Mike  what  I  think  of  him  on  the 
air."  ("We  are  mystified  that  he  thinks 
that,"  Wallace  later  said.)  In  the  hotel 
driveway,  as  we  wait  in  the  car  for  the  se- 
curity man  to  join  us,  Wigand  sees  a  man 
crossing  quickly  in  front  of  us.  "Holy  shit, 
there  is  Kendrick  Wells!"  he  yells.  It  is 
eight  a.m.,  and  Wells,  B&W's  assistant 
general  counsel  for  product  litigation,  is 
heading  toward  the  company  tower. 
"What  in  the  world  could  they  be  doing 
so  early  on  a  Saturday?"  Wigand  asks  ner- 
vously as  we  leave  for  the  airport. 

As  Wigand  and  I  were  having  dinner  at 
the  Hyatt  the  night  before,  the  B&W 
lawyers  apparently  made  a  decision  to  at- 
tempt to  counteract  the  publication  of 
parts  of  the  leaked  deposition  in  The  Wall 
Street  Journal.  Someone  on  the  B&W  legal 


team  suggested  that  their  entire  500 -page 
confidential  dossier  be  sent  immediately  to 
the  Journal's  reporter,  Suein  Hwang.  That 
would  turn  out  to  be  a  disastrous  strategic 
error.  No  one  at  B&W  had  checked  the  ac- 
curacy of  Lenzner's  report,  titled  Tlie  Mis- 
conduct of  Jeffrey  S.  Wigand  Available  in 
the  Public  Record.  The  list  of  allegations  is 
dense  and  for  most  reporters  immediately 
suspect.  On  the  Sunday  that  Wigand  taped 
at  60  Minutes,  Palladino  met  with  Suein 
Hwang  for  seven  hours,  going  over  every 
charge  in  the  report.  "We  didn't  leave  the 
Empire  Diner  until  the  early  hours  of  the 
morning,"  Palladino  later  recalled.  "The 
Journal  editors  decided  they  would  investi- 
gate every  allegation.  When  I  got  back  to 
the  hotel,  I  faxed  my  office:  'Drop  every- 
thing and  work  on  these  charges.' " 

The  summary  is  divided  into  cate- 
gories—Unlawful Activity;  Possible  False 
or  Fraudulent  Claims  for  Stolen,  Lost  or 
Damaged  Property;  Lies  on  Wigand's  Re- 
sumes; Wigand's  Lies  About  His  Resi- 
dence; Wigand's  Lies  Under  Oath;  Other 
Lies  by  Wigand;  Mental  Illness.  The  docu- 
ment is  a  smorgasbord  of  allegations,  large 
and  small.  "On  November  18,  1991,  Wi- 
gand wrote  to  Coast  Cutlery  Company 
and  returned  an  allegedly  damaged  knife 
for  repair."  "On  March  19,  1992.  Wigand 
wrote  to  Coach  for  Business  requesting 
credit  to  his  American  Express  card  for 
two  returned  items."  More  serious  for  the 
Justice  Department,  the  contradictions  in 
his  testimony  on  fire-safe  cigarettes  are  de- 
tailed, which  Wigand  explains  by  the  fact 
that  time  elapsed  between  his  testimony  in 
Washington,  while  he  was  still  under  a  sev- 
erance agreement  with  B&W,  and  what  he 
was  able  to  say  about  fire  safety  after  ana- 
lyzing the  Hamlet-project  papers. 

In  Washington,  even  President  Clinton 
has  started  to  grapple  with  the  problem 
of  Jeffrey  Wigand.  Does  he  reach  out  and 
embrace  him  as  he  did  the  late  Tobacco 
Institute  lobbyist  Victor  Crawford?  At  the 
moment,  Clinton  is  battle-weary,  accord- 
ing to  one  source  close  to  him.  He  has 
survived  the  controversy  surrounding  Da- 
vid Kessler,  the  vigorous  head  of  the 
F.D.A.,  an  inside  battle  in  which  Health 
and  Human  Services  Secretary  Donna 
Shalala  and  White  House  Deputy  Chief  of 
Staff  Harold  Ickes  lined  up  for  Kessler, 
and  Patrick  Griffin,  the  president's  liaison 
to  Congress,  and  Erskine  Bowles,  a  dep- 
uty chief  of  staff,  questioned  Clinton's 
continued  support  of  Kessler.  Griffin 
pointed  out  that  Kessler  would  bring 
down  on  Clinton  the  possible  loss  of  four 
tobacco  states— Kentucky,  Virginia,  and 
the  Carol  inas— and  the  enmity  of  the  to- 


il see 
TV 

IDS 

loici 
auc 

it  d 


bacco  lobbies.  Last  year  B&W  hired  tl 
Whitewater  special  prosecutor,  Kenne 
Starr,  to  represent  the  company  in  its  lc 
ing  fight  to  prevent  dissemination  of  tl  | 
Merrell  Williams  documents.  Recently 
top  White  House  official  called  the  hirir 
of  Kenneth  Starr  "a  travesty"  because  i 
the  possibility  of  conflict  of  interest  in  i 
vestigating  the  president  as  he  attempts 
regulate  the  tobacco  industry. 

If  Clinton  were  to  embrace  Wigand, 
would  signal  that  the  Justice  Departmei   m 
had  no  reservations  about  his  credibilit    ; 
but  as  yet  there  has  been  no  clear  sign 
from  Washington.  David  Kessler  woul  m 
not  be  interviewed  for  60  Minutes  coi 
cerning   his   relationship   with   Wigam 
perhaps  because  the  F.D.A.  is  careful  1 
appear  neutral  as  it  attempts  to  chanj 
the  laws  and  force  tobacco  to  be  regula 
ed  as  a  drug. 


ran 

IS! 


V 


me 


In  New  York  we  go  to  dinner  at  a  Jap;  ; 
nese  restaurant  with  Jack   Palladia 
Wigand  sits  in  a  tatami  room  and  ordei 
baby  eel  in  fluent  Japanese.  Palladino  tel 
him,  "You  are  a  very  important  man 
this  moment.  You  have  got  to  get  out  ( 
Louisville.  You  should  be  at  a  major  foui   a 
dation  that. is  doing  tobacco  research. 
For  Palladino,  there  is  little  about  Wigani  &ei 
that  reminds  him  of  Edmond  Safra.  thf  m 
banker— and  the  client  of  Stanley  Arkin-    v\, 
he  worked  for  who  was  also  the  victim  c    t ; 
a  smear.  Safra  was  motivated  by  a  sens  pre 
of  moral   outrage,    Palladino    tells   m<i  ien 
whereas  Wigand's  level  of  tension  is  a  sig  lib 
of  pure  fear.  At  dinner,  he  is  without  d(  ti\\ 
fenses.  He  says,  "The  only  thing  I  have 
my  teaching.  I  will  not  give  it  up.  I  ow    it 
the  kids."  In  the  car  on  the  way  back  t    « 
the  hotel,  Wigand  is  irritable.  "I  feel  I  ar  ipii 
being  corralled  by  these  guys." 

Wigand  is  tired  in  New  York,  and  con  c> 
plains  of  chest  pains.  It  is  his  intention  t  A 
get  a  physical,  including  an  EKG.  H  fc 
checks  into  the  Shelburne,  a  modest  hote  i( 
at  37th  Street,  although  60  Minutes  has  o  1 1 
fered  to  put  him  up  at  the  more  posh  E;  » 
sex  House,  on  Central  Park  South.  "DO  aid 
you  know  what  it  would  be  like  if  I  wer  I  nti 
there  with  them?"  he  says.  "They  wouL  \m 
be  down  my  throat  every  second." 

Wigand  is  scheduled  for  his  second  6  r 
Minutes  interview  Sunday  afternoon.  Ii  an 
the  morning  he  calls  me  and  says,  " 
have  to  have  a  Save  the  Children  tie.  Thi 
is  what  this  whole  thing  is  about— smokl 
ing  and  kids.  Where  can  I  get  one?"  Hi 
tone  is  intense,  serious.  "I  won't  go  oi 
the  air  without  it,"  he  says.  I  meet  Wi 
gand  in  his  room  at  the  Shelburne.  Pa] 
ladino  has  already  arrived,  and  pace 
back  and  forth  trying  to  boost  Wigand' 


.; 


214 


VANITY  FAIR /MAY  199 


isnse  of  himself  before  he  is  filmed.  "You 
pre  a  man  who  is  trying  to  tell  the  truth. 
fhey  are  trying  to  ruin  your  life.  It  is 
bur  story.  You  have  to  tell  it  the  way 
bou  see  it."  Palladino  coaches  Wigand 
m  TV  technique:  "Don't  use  too  many 
kouns  or  proper  names.  Don't  be  too 
technical.  What  you  want  is  for  them— the 
IfV  audience— to  suddenly  look  up  from 
heir  cheese  puffs  and  say,  'He  is  telling 
tie  truth.'"  "I  am  a  scientist,"  Wigand  re- 
iponds  churlishly.  "That  is  how  I  speak." 
pes,"  says  Palladino,  "but  consider  it 
this  way:  you  are  getting  a  chance  to  tell 
rour  story  in  front  of  an  audience." 
'Vhile  Palladino  speaks,  Wigand  puts  on 
I  fresh  shirt  and  takes  a  Save  the  Chil- 
ilren  tie  from  a  Bloomingdale's  box.  He 
snots  it  while  looking  in  the  mirror  and 
(ben  visibly  relaxes.  "O.K.,  Jack,"  he 
ays.  "I  feel  better  now." 

"It's  simple,"  Palladino  says.  "Just  tell 
he  truth.  That  is  all  you  have." 

On  one  occasion  in  Louisville,  I  go  to 
see  the  B&W  public -relations  man  Joe 
delewicz,  a  former  reporter  for  the  Balti- 
more Sun.  I  am  brought  to  a  reception 
irea,  a  large  room  filled  with  smoke.  On 
several  tables  there  are  containers  of  B&W 
pigarettes,  Kools  and  Capris.  Near  me  a 
talesman  from  Pitney  Bowes  smokes  a 
fCool  and  says,  "I  am  supposed  to  be  quit- 
ing,  but  I  like  coming  here,  because  the 
agarettes  are  free."  After  some  time  I  am 
laken  up  to  the  18th  floor  to  wait  for 
Helewicz.  This  is  the  inner  sanctum  of  the 
B&W  legal  department,  the  floor  that  was 
it  until  midnight  five  days  earlier.  The  ten- 
sion is  palpable;  men  in  suits  are  huddled 
n  several  corner  offices.  I  am  shown  to  an 
;mpty  office  to  wait.  The  Wall  Street  Jour- 
nal has  scheduled  an  expose  of  the  Wigand 
nvestigation  for  the  next  day's  paper.  The 
publication  of  the  B&W  deposition  excerpt 
in  the  Journal  has  also  lifted  any  restriction 
3n  CBS— now  owned  by  Westinghouse— to 
air  its  long-delayed  report.  In  private,  the 
lew  CBS  News  president,  Andrew  Hey- 
ivard,  tells  Wallace  that  the  story  is  "a  pri- 
ority." In  New  York,  Bergman  is  scram- 
bling with  a  CBS  crew,  freed  at  last  by 
Ellen  Kaden  to  complete  a  process  he  be- 
gan in  1994.  The  crew  has  waited  outside 
Scanlon's  apartment  building  to  ambush 
him.  Scanlon  stood  in  the  snow  and  said, 


"Wigand  is  a  habitual  liar."  Earlier,  he  had 
shouted  at  Bergman  on  the  telephone, 
"You  guys  are  going  to  hose  mt." 

While  I  wait  for  Helewicz,  I  review  my 
notes  from  a  dinner  I  had  with  Wigand 
the  night  before.  Wigand  had  been  to  see 
a  divorce  lawyer  that  afternoon,  a  fact 
that  would  be  known  12  hours  later  at 
B&W  headquarters. 

From  a  window  I  look  down  at  the  ex- 
act table  where  Wigand  and  I  had  dinner 
in  the  Hyatt's  revolving  restaurant.  Sud- 
denly I  hear  loud  voices  coming  from 
Room  1821,  then  occupied  by  John  Kiser, 
a  B&W  lawyer: 

"Things  have  been  a  little  hectic  here." 

"We  need  a  divorce  specialist  ..." 

"Wigand  said  no  to  child  support." 

"Let's  do  it  all!" 

"This  will  be  blazed  in  the  streets  and 
the  back  alleys!" 

"It  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  law- 
books!" 

Sometime  later  I  see  Joe  Helewicz. 
Within  moments  of  our  meeting,  he  tells 
me  that,  as  far  as  he  is  concerned,  Wi- 
gand is  a  liar  and  cheats  at  golf.  "He's  a 
paid  mercenary,"  he  says.  "Is  he  talking  to 
any  other  media  besides  CBS?"  I  do  not 
answer,  and  he  continues.  "Why?  Because 
they're  not  paying  him.  I  don't  know  why 
you  and  a  lot  of  others  don't  see  it.  Our 
business  is  out  of  favor.  It's  not  politically 
correct.  If  somebody  stands  up  to  the  to- 
bacco business,  they're  a  hero.  Forget 
about  the  other  side  of  the  story." 

I  read  to  Helewicz  parts  of  the  conver- 
sation I  have  just  overheard  and  ask  him 
if  that  language  does  not  indicate  a  smear 
or  unethical  corporate  behavior.  "You 
picked  up  part  of  a  conversation,  and 
that's  a  characterization  of  a  campaign, 
because  you  picked  up  a  couple  of  sen- 
tences out  of  context!"  he  says,  but  he  re- 
fuses to  allow  me  to  interview  the  lawyer 
whose  office  the  conversation  was  held  in. 
"I  would  take  issue  with  the  word  'smear' 
when  what  you  are  doing  is  putting  out 
fact  about  a  person  who  is  lying  about 
you  and  making  vast  allegations." 

Japanese  class  begins  at  eight  a.m.  in 
Room  312  at  DuPont  Manual  in  down- 
town Louisville.  Wigand  teaches  a  group 
of  32  students,  who  sit  quietly  after  the 


bell  and  the  Pledge  of  Allegiance  on  a 
closed-circuit  TV.  Wigand  is  adamant 
about  not  wanting  to  talk  to  his  students 
about  what  he  is  going  through.  "I  happen 
to  love  teaching,"  he  says,  "and  I  don't 
want  to  concern  them."  "Hajime  masu!" 
he  tells  them.  "Let's  begin!  We  are  going 
to  do  some  sumi  today— calligraphy.  How 
many  of  you  brought  brushes?"  In  front  of 
his  class,  Jeff  Wigand  is  transformed.  He 
is  open  and  generous,  and  the  class  re- 
sponds with  noisy  delight.  At  the  end  of 
the  session,  Wigand's  students  surround 
him  at  a  small  table  as  he  dips  a  special 
Japanese  brush  into  calligraphy  ink.  "The 
maneuver  is  very  loose,  all  from  the  shoul- 
der—you have  to  relax  to  do  it  right,"  he 
says.  "It  is  about  flow. "  His  shoulder  loos- 
ens, and  his  hand  begins  moving  the  brush 
across  a  page.  He  makes  a  small  box,  a 
long  line,  a  special  dot,  a  flourish.  "You 
see  this  symbol  in  Japanese  restaurants. 
Does  anyone  know  what  it  is?  This  is 
known  as  'happiness  forever,'"  he  tells 
them.  "It  is  all  a  matter  of  control." 

Soon  after  The  Wall  Street  Journal  pub- 
lished its  front-page  article  harshly 
skeptical  of  the  500 -page  dossier,  Wigand 
moved  into  a  two-bedroom  apartment  in 
Louisville.  "I  will  feel  better  when  I  have 
my  things  around  me,"  he  said.  He  was 
particularly  concerned  about  his  comput- 
er, which  contained  one  version  of  his 
B&W  scientific  diary.  During  a  routine 
F.B.I,  investigation  of  his  most  recent 
death  threat,  Wigand  grew  outraged  that 
his  privacy  was  being  invaded.  He  had 
words  with  one  agent,  who  reacted  by  ob- 
taining a  search  warrant  and  impounding 
his  computer,  telling  lawyers  close  to  the 
case  that  Wigand  was  "a  suspect"  in  the 
matter,  although  there  was  no  evidence  of 
any  kind  to  suggest  that  Wigand  had  sent 
himself  a  death  threat. 

"They  are  not  going  to  leave  me  alone," 
Wigand  told  me  in  early  February.  It  was 
the  day  after  the  most  recent  episode— a 
break-in  at  the  office  of  Joe  Mobley,  his  di- 
vorce lawyer.  "There  have  been  a  few  fire- 
works," Mobley  told  me.  "Four  days  after 
my  employment,  I  did  have  a  'toss,'  as 
they  say  in  the  vernacular.  Nothing  was 
taken,  but  the  contents  of  my  desk  were 


You  have  put  us  all  in  danger"  Wigand  said  his 
wife  told  him.  "I  want  you  out  of  the  houjff ;; 


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Wigand 


thrown  all  over  the  floor."  For  Palladino, 
the  break -in  was  "clearly  a  message."  The 
clue,  he  said,  was  unmistakable:  a  pile  of 
burned  matches  near  the  door. 

According  to  The  American  Lawyer, 
there  are  now  nearly  200  law  firms 
working  on  more  than  25  major  tobacco 
cases,  and  Wigand  could  be  an  expert  wit- 
ness in  all  of  them.  His  testimony  has  been 
sought  for  five  ongoing  investigations  in 
the  Justice  Department.  Wigand's  lawyers 
announced  in  early  February  that  he  is 
countersuing  B&W  for  invading  his  priva- 
cy, and  he  has  charged  that  B&W  abused 
the  legal  process  by  seeking  to  block  his 
testimony.  Like  a  Mob  witness,  Wigand 
has  entered  a  shadowland  of  litigation.  For 
investigators  and  lawyers,  he  has  lost  his 
former  identity  and  is  now  referred  to  as 
"the  client":  "I  am  having  dinner  with  the 
client."  "The  client  has  to  be  in  New  York 
for  a  meeting."  There  was  recently  a  bomb 
threat  at  DuPont  Manual. 

There  is  no  question  that  Wigand's 
presence  in  the  middle  of  the  tobacco  wars 
is  an  accident,  without  grand  design.  "I 
just  wanted  to  get  the  story  out,"  he  told 
Lowell  Bergman  after  the  60  Minutes  seg- 
ment aired.  It  is  possible  that  his  testimony 
could  cause  several  former  C.E.O.'s  to  be 
indicted  for  perjury,  including  Thomas 
Sandefur  and  Andrew  Tisch.  "I  can't  give 
you  25  reasons  why  I  did  it,"  he  told  me 
recently,  but  since  Wigand  appeared  in  the 
arena,  there  has  been  a  revolution  in  to- 
bacco history.  Over  St.  Patrick's  Day 
weekend,  he  was  back  in  New  York,  far 
more  sanguine  than  he  had  been  in  late 
January.  That  week  Richard  Scruggs  had 
negotiated  a  remarkable  settlement  with 
the  Liggett  Group,  which,  in  an  unprece- 
dented move,  broke  ranks  with  the  other 
four  U.S.  tobacco  giants  and  agreed  to  set- 
tle the  states'  claims  and  to  accept  pro- 
posed F.D.A.  marketing  regulations.  The 
Liggett  breakthrough  was  the  inspiration 
of  majority  shareholder  Bennett  LeBow,  a 
Wall  Street  buccaneer  who,  in  alliance 
with  corporate  raider  Carl  Icahn,  is  hop- 
ing to  take  over  RJR  Nabisco.  Liggett's 
settlement  created  a  selling  frenzy  on  Wall 
Street,  and  Philip  Morris's  stock  plunged 
16  percent  in  five  days.  Big  Tobacco  was 
suddenly  like  South  Africa  in  the  1980s,  as 
the  giant  structure  started  to  crack.  In 
March  three  more  whistle-blowers  came 
forward— former  employees  of  Philip  Mor- 
ris. Shortly  before  Scruggs  began  negotiat- 
ing with  LeBow's  lawyers,  Ian  Uydess,  a 
scientist,  was  in  Washington  at  the  F.D.A. 


alleging  in  a  24-page  affidavit  that  Ph  i ;  I 
Morris  had  routinely  adjusted  nicot  I 
levels.  Meanwhile,  The  Courier-Jour  ■ 
reported  that  of  the  seven  top  executi  i 
who  testified  before  Congress  in  1994  t 
nicotine  was  nonaddictive,  only  one 
mains  in  place.  Recently,  Governor  K      k 
Fordice  of  Mississippi  has  gone  to  count  fiw 
try  to  stop  his  own  attorney  general,  1! 
chael  Moore,  from  pursuing  anti-toba«  |l9) 
litigation,  implying  he  was  opportunists    J[Jli 
captive  of  plaintiffs'  lawyers. 

While  Scruggs  was  fielding  calls  ab   •- 
the  Liggett  settlement,  Wigand  lean   j"  -: 
that  the  drawers  in  his  home  office  r 
been  jimmied  open  and  his  1993  di; 
had  vanished.  Wigand  was  in  New  Yc   «- 
to  meet  with  Scruggs  and  Margolin  to  <    ( 
cuss  an  unusual  tort  suit— the  intentio    w 
infliction   of  emotional   harm— they   ;    <>  r 
considering  filing  against  John  Scan!    ■> «! 
and  others  involved  in  the  B&W  dossi   j 
Scanlon,    meanwhile,    soldiered    on 
B&W.  "There  will  be  a  third  act,  and  j(p 
Wigand  will  be  unmasked,"  he  told  r    ^ 
Ellen  Kaden  remained  angry;  she  coi 
not  see  that  she  had  set  off  a  histo    bei 
process  by  being  concerned  about  tortic    Hur 
interference.  In  Washington,  D.C.,  at  i   »' 
end    of   March,    a    U.S.    district   jug  ?k> 
seemed  to  override  the  Kentucky  restra   >>  > 
ing  order  by  granting  an  emergency  ore  ii  u. 
allowing  Wigand  to  testify  before  a  fed  « 
al  grand  jury  without  briefing  B&W  fir: 

Wigand  reached  a  point  where  nothii  '*i 
surprised  him  anymore,  so  he  haw  sail 
reacted  when  he  looked  across  the  dinii  wie 
room  at  the  Essex  House  and  noticed  I  h 
Uydess,  the  tall,  balding  new  whistle -blov  i! 
from  Philip  Morris,  having  breakfast.  Tl  miu 
two  men  nodded  at  each  other— Uydess  h 
once  applied  to  Wigand  for  a  job— but  tr 
avoided  a  direct  conversation,  perhaps 
order  to  prevent  any  suggestion  of  conspij  k  I; 
acy.  Later,  Uydess  told  me  that  he  believ  ni 
his  own  role  was  relatively  minor,  and  tl  h 
Wigand  was  the  person  'Vith  real  couragi    »c 

"None  of  this  would  have  happen   :u 
without  Jeff  and  Merrell  Williams,"  Scru§    W 
told  me.  "In  early  November  it  looked  li    » 
Big  Tobacco  had  silenced  the  press.  N<l   | 
who  knows  what  will  happen?"  At  H 
suhana,  a  smart  Japanese  restaurant 
midtown  Manhattan,  Scruggs  toasted  V 
gand.  "You  are  an  important  man.  I  sail 
you."  Wigand  smiled,  but  his  response  w 
muted.  I  thought  of  a  remark  he  had  ma 
to  me  on  a  plane  in  January:  "I  wish 
could  see  the  horizon."  When  we  got 
New  York  that  day,  there  was  a  drivii 
rain,  with  gales  of  wind.  Wigand  and  I  n 
through  the  parking  lot  to  a  car.  He  w 
suddenly  released,  laughing  convulsive 
"Maybe  this  is  a  sign,"  he  told  me.  □ 


); 


216 


VANITY  FAIR  /MAY  19 


Si 


1111! 

lum 


Helen  Auni 


Continued  from  page  168)  against  his 
tetter  judgment,  sticks  with  his  gung-ho 
»artner. 

"I  keep  reading  these  articles,  and 
tveryone,  from  Arnold  Schwarzenegger 
10  my  mom,  is  doing  an  action  movie 
ind  saying,  'But  this  one's  really  about 
characters,'"  Hunt  says,  eyes  rolling. 
■But,  having  said  that,  I  think  this  movie 
jjas  much  more  character  development 
»han  any  other  action  movie  I've  seen 
\)X  heard  about.  They  really  wrote  a 
ivoman's  part— in  a  big,  huge,  fat  action 
jnovie— that's  complicated." 
I  Come  to  think  of  it,  Bullock  was  no 
jiimpering  ninny  in  Speed;  De  Bont,  im- 
probably for  a  former  disciple  of  Show- 
girls director  Paul  Verhoeven,  is  emerg- 
?ng  as  a  champion  of  women.  "I  had  to 
"lght  with  the  studio  to  get  Sandra,  and  I 
iiad  to  do  the  same  for  Helen,"  he  says. 
t'l  like  strong  women,  and  I  like  to  work 
;Anth  actors  who  don't  feel  like  they  have 
to  be  the  same  person  in  every  movie." 

Hunt  fulfills  the  order— and  does  it  with 
[passion.  As  the  "Hers"-column  episode 
[suggests,  she  is  interested  primarily  in  sto- 
iries  where,  as  the  Times  Magazine  might 
put  it,  gender  is  the  fulcrum.  "I  have  a  17- 
tyear-old  cousin  I'm  very  close  to,"  she  of- 
fers, "and  I'm  gonna  give  the  speech  at 
graduation.  An  all-girls  school— I  like  that 
;it's  all  women.  Somehow  the  fact  that  it's 
fwomen  makes  me  feel  like  I've  walked  in 
(those  shoes,  so  maybe  there's  something  I 
lean  say  that's  inspiring  or  comforting  or 
(confusing  or  something." 

Over  and  over  again,  she  brings  up  her 
desire  to  tell  women's  stories.  Exam- 
ple: last  year,  by  virtue  of  her  immense 
(popularity  on  Mad  About  You,  Hunt  was 
[Offered  several  book  deals,  among  them 
(one  of  those  face-on -the-cover  jobs  that 
i get  synopsized  in  the  best-seller  charts  as 
i  "Anecdotes,  observations,  and  medita- 
tions from  the  television  actor."  Given 
(the  current  book  market,  taking  on  such 
ia  project  can  be  as  lucrative  as  getting  a 
movie  lead:  Reiser's  first  book,  Couple- 
\hood,  was  a  No.  1  best-seller  in  both 
hardcover  and  paperback,  and  the  rights 
;  to  his  second  book,  about  his  new  parent- 
hood, recently  fetched  a  reported  $5 
million  advance  from  William  Morrow. 
I  Hunt  asked  one  of  the  editors  she  met  if, 
i  in  the  event  she  consented  to  do  a  book, 
she  could  do  something  different,  maybe 
15  essays  about  her  experiences  as  a  wom- 
an. Like  15  "Hers"  columns?  "I  can  tell 
you  for  sure  it  wouldn't  have  to  do  with 

VANITY  FAIR /MAY  1996 


Credits 


lasiiiiiii 


Page  12:  Styled  by  Jonathan  Skow  Helen  Hunt's 

shirt  by  Paul  Smith,  from  Paul  Smith,  NYC;  jacket 
by  Ralph  Lauren  Collection  Classics,  from  Ralph 
Lauren,  NYC;  jeans  by  American  Rag  Cie,  from 
American  Rag  Ce,  LA;  vintage  socks  from  Re- 
Mix,  LA.,  shoes  by  Robert  Clergerie,  from  Robert 
Clergerie,  NYC 

Page  22:  For  Nick  Bravin's  and  Mark  Henry's 
Adidas  sneakers,  call  800-448-1796  Sheila 
Hudson's  Reebok  sneakers  from  stores  nation- 
wide. For  Michael  Johnson's  Nike  sneakers,  call 
800-344-NIKE 

Page  115:  Daphne  Rubin-Vega's  Vivienne 
Westwood  top  from  Barneys  New  York,  NYC, 
Dolce  &  Gabbana  pants  from  Louis,  Boston, 
Boston  Adam  Pascal's  Costume  Homme  shirt 
from  Charivari,  NYC;  Alberto  Blani  pants  from 
Traffic,  L.A  Garth  Condit  for  Visages  Style 
Page  118:  Bottom,  styled  by  Lee  Moore  for 
Visages  Style,  shirt,  tie,  suit,  and  shoes  by  Polo 
by  Ralph  Lauren,  from  Polo  Ralph  Lauren, 
Beverly  Hills. 

Page  121:  Top,  styled  by  Lisa  von  Weise  for 
Marek;  suit  and  tie  by  Matsuda,  from  Matsuda, 
NYC;  shirt  by  A  PC  ,  from  A  PC,  NYC 
Page    150:  Jackie  Joyner-Kersee's  sneakers 
by  Nike,  call  800-344-NIKE 
Page  166:  Helen  Hunt's  Trina  Turk  jacket  from 
Ron  Herman/Fred  Segal,  LA;  Paul  Smith  Spec- 
tacles glasses  from  Oliver  Peoples,  LA 
Page  167:  Ralph  Lauren  Collection  Classics 
clothing    from    Ralph    Lauren,    NYC;     Robert 
Clergerie  shoes  from  Robert  Clergerie,  NYC 
Page  169:  American  Rag  Cie  bathing  suit  from 
American  Rag  Cie,  LA,;  Jil  Sander  coat  from  Jil 
Sander,  Chicago 

Pages  182-83:  Naomi  Campbell's  Gian- 
franco  Ferre  for  Christian  Dior  Haute  Couture  suit 
by  special  order  from  Christian  Dior,  Paris. 
Charlton  Cannon's  Charvet  shirt  from  Bergdorf 
Goodman,  NYC. 

Page  185:  Top,  Karl  Lagerfeld  for  Chanel 
Haute  Couture  dress  by  special  order  from 
Chanel,  Paris.  Bottom,  Vivienne  Westwood  shirt 
and  greatcoat  from  Saks  Fifth  Avenue,  NYC 
Gianfranco  Ferre's  Hermes  scarf  from  Hermes 
boutiques  nationwide. 

Page  187:  Valentino  Couture  chemise  by  spe- 
cial order  from  Valentino,  Paris  and  Rome. 
Page  188:  Emanuel  Ungaro  Haute  Couture 
evening  dress  and  wedding  gown,  both  by 
special  order  from  the  House  of  Ungaro, 
Paris;  Manolo  Blahnik  mules  from  Manolo 
Blahnik,  NYC  ,  Cerruti  tuxedo  from  Saks 
Fifth  Avenue,  NYC 

Page  189:  Shalom  Harlow's  and  Amber 
Valletta's  Gianni  Versace  suits  from  Gianni 
Versace  Boutiques  nationwide;  Charvet  shirts 
from  Bergdorf  Goodman,  NYC 
Page  190:  Gianfranco  Ferre  for  Christian 
Dior  Haute  Couture  dress  by  special  order 
from  Christian  Dior,  Pans,  Chanel  Haute 
Couture  gloves  by  special  order  from  Chanel, 
Paris. 

Page  191:  John  Galliano  for  Givenchy  Haute 
Couture  dress  by  special  order  from  the  House 
of  Givenchy,  Paris 


Beauty  and  Grooming 

Cover:  Richard  Keo  for  Art  &  Commerce;  Gucci 
Westman  for  Visages  Style 
Page  12:  See  credits  for  pages  166-69. 
Page  22:  Bottom,  see  credits  for  cover. 
Page    115:  Daphne  Rubin-Vega's  hair  styled 
with  Matrix  Vavoom  Pomousse.  All  makeup  from 
Shiseido  On  her  eyes,  Shadow  Liner  in  Black  Vari- 
ations, on  her  lips,  Advanced  Performance  Lip- 
stick in  Fiery   Adam  Pascal  groomed  with  prod- 
ucts from  Matrix.  Linda  Daniele  for  the  Louis  Licari 
Color  Group;  Jeorge  Serio  for  Jed  Root,  Inc. 
Page  118:  Bottom,  grooming  by  Ulli  Schoeber 
for  Celestine. 

Page  121:  Top,  grooming  by  Kate  Best  for  Trilise. 
Page  125:  Hair  and  makeup  by  Richard  Keo 
for  Art  &  Commerce. 

Page  157:  Hair  and  makeup  by  Jo  Strettell  for 
Visages  Style 

Pages  166-69:  Helen  Hunt's  hair  styled  with 
Aveda  Confixor.  All  makeup  from  Estee  Lauder. 
On  her  eyes,  Compact  Disc  Eyeshadow  in  Coral 
1  and  Coral  5;  on  her  lips,  Double  Gloss  in  Wet 
Wet  Roses.  Darrell  Redleaf-Fielder  for  Cloutier; 
Denise  Markey  for  the  Stephen  Knoll  Salon 
Pages  183-91:  Naomi  Campbell's  hair 
styled  with  Paul  Mitchell  Foaming  Pommade.  All 
makeup  from  Elizabeth  Arden.  On  her  eyes,  Eye- 
color  Naturals  in  Silversmoke/Currant;  on  her 
lips,  Luxury  Lipstick  in  Spiceberry  Odile  Gilbert 
and  Sylvain  Lehen  for  Marie-France;  Tracey 
Gray  for  Calhste. 

Page  189:  Shalom  Harlow's  and  Amber  Val- 
letta's hair  styled  with  Paul  Mitchell  Super  Clean 
Sculpting  Gel.  All  makeup  from  Elizabeth  Arden, 
On  their  eyes,  Eyecolor  Naturals  Duo  in  Bare/ 
Fawn;  on  their  lips,  Luxury  Lipstick  in  Cafe  Red. 

Photographs  and  Miscellany 

Page  14:  From  Black  Star. 

Page    58:    Large    photograph    from    Hulton 
Deutsch,  top  inset  from  Brown  Brothers;  bottom 
right,  from  NYT  Pictures. 
Page  60:  Both  from  Hulton  Deutsch. 
Page  62:  Right,  from  U.Pl./Corbis-Bettmann. 
Pages  64  and  66:  From  Gamma-Liaison, 
Page  94:  From  lop  to  bottom,  by  Scheler/Stern/ 
Black  Star,  from  Archive  Photos,  by  Arnal/Stills, 
Pat/Stills 

Page  96:  Left,  from  Popperfoto;  right,  from  the 
CBS  Photo  Archive. 

Page  98:  Left,  from  Life  magazine,  ©  by  Time 
Inc.;  right,  from  Archive  Photos/Potter  Collection. 
Page  100:  From  A  P./Wide  World  Photos. 
Page  102:  From  U.P.I  /Bettmann. 
Page  106:  From  FPG  International. 
Page  108:  From  Archive  Photos 
Page  112:  From  Globe  Photos. 
Page  118:  Top  right,  courtesy  of  the  Estate  of 
F  Scott  Fitzgerald. 

Page  121:  Bottom  left,  by  Edward  Reed  and 
Scott  Foster;  right,  by  Claire  Yaffa. 
Page  194:  Bottom,  courtesy  of  Vogue,  ©  1972 
by  the  Conde  Nast  Publications  Inc. 
Page  197:  Insets,  top,  from  NYT  Pictures;  bot- 
tom, from  Archive  Photos. 
Page  201:  From  NYT  Pictures. 


217 


Helen  Hunt 


me  being  an  actress  or  famous,  but  more 
to  do  with  the  women  who  came  before 
me,  like  my  grandmother  and  her  moth- 
er, and  my  17-year-old  cousin,  and  why 
Meryl  Streep  is  called  'over  40'  instead  of 
'an  actress.'"  (The  editor  was  receptive, 
but  Hunt  has  decided  to  postpone  the  lit- 
erary career.) 

At  32,  Hunt  is  representative  of  a  gen- 
eration of  moderately  famous  actors 
who  have  been  in  the  business  for  at  least 
half  their  lifetimes,  registering  success  in 
steady  dividends  rather  than  mammoth 
payoffs.  Tim  Robbins,  Eric  Stoltz,  Antho- 
ny Edwards,  Mare  Winningham,  Helen 
Slater:  they're  neither  besieged  superstars 
nor  used-up  John  Hughes  refugees.  "I'm 
a  slow-and-steady-wins-the-race  sort  of 
person,"  Hunt  says,  "and  I  get  nervous 
when  anything  moves  too  quickly." 

"People  don't  realize  that  Helen's  the 
hardest-working  gal  in  showbiz,"  says 
Stoltz,  who  first  teamed  up  with  Hunt  in 
1989,  in  a  Lincoln  Center  production  of 
Thornton  Wilder's  Our  Town,  and  has 
since  made  guest  appearances  on  Mad 
About  You.  "She's  been  working  nonstop 
since  she  was  a  kid,  and  kept  her  head 
above  the  madness." 

Indeed,  given  Hunt's  curriculum  vitae, 
her  unshakable  sanity  practically  warrants 
inclusion  in  Ripley's.  Her  father,  Gordon 
Hunt,  is  a  director  and  acting  coach 
whose  work  kept  the  family  toggling 
back  and  forth  between  the  East  and 
West  Coasts  throughout  Helen's  child- 
hood. She  began  acting  professionally  at 
age  nine,  first  playing  the  she-towhead  in 
things  like  Swiss  Family  Robinson  and 
The  Mary  Tyler  Moore  Show  (in  the  latter 
she  was  Murray's  daughter),  then  moving 
on  to  movie-of-the-week  piffle  ("I  was  a 
princess  from  outer  space  once  [in  a  1976 
episode  of  The  Bionie  Woman).  I  had 
these  square-toed  silver  boots  and  a  little 
lame  outfit,  and  I  gave  this  deep,  like,  So- 
phie 's  Choice  monologue  about  my  people 
back  home"),  then  spending  a  lonely  late- 
teens  sojourn  in  New  York  taking  dance 
lessons,  then  returning  to  L.A.  for  further 
adventures  on  the  soundstages,  then  back 


to  New  York  in  her  early  20s,  then  back 
to  L.A.  yet  again.  She  could  easily  be  an 
awful,  jaded,  seen -it-all  showbiz  casualty 
in  thrall  to  firearms,  rhinoplasty,  and 
Lady  Blow.  Why  isn't  she? 

"She's  always  had  this  remarkable 
sense  of  balance,"  says  her  father.  "She 
had  a  savvy  about  her  as  a  teen  that  you 
would  equate  with  that  of  someone  in 
the  business  20  years,"  says  Anthony  Ed- 
wards, who  first  met  Hunt  in  1981,  when 
they  were  cast  as  brother  and  sister  in  a 
failed  sitcom  called  It  Takes  Two.  "I  re- 
member meeting  her  and  thinking, 
She  looks  like  she's  17,  but  she's  going 
to  take  care  of  me." 

Indeed,  talking  to  her  actor  friends, 
you  get  the  sense  that  Hunt  is  the  rock  of 
her  group,  the  stalwart  who  keeps  it  all 
together,  socially  and  mentally,  for  every- 
one else.  Edwards  says  their  Thanksgiving 
tradition  arose  14  years  ago  when  his  par- 
ents had  just  divorced  and  she  thought  to 
invite  him  along  to  her  friends'  house  in 
Connecticut.  Slater,  Hunt's  best  friend, 
tells  of  meeting  her  husband  at  an  improv 
class  to  which  Hunt  had  dragged  her,  and 
of  going  once  a  year  with  Hunt  to  Ha- 
waii, where,  sans  their  men,  they  "live 
like  nuns,  not  talking  to  each  other  all 
day,  just  reading  books  and  meditating." 
Stoltz  is  positively  rapturous  as  he  recalls 
the  moment  Hunt  first  cast  her  spell  on 
him.  He'd  known  her  fleetingly,  having 
been  Edwards's'college  roommate  at  the 
time  of  //  Takes  Two.  One  night,  "as  I 
was  driving  home  on  the  freeway  she 
pulled  up  next  to  me,  and  we  locked  eyes 
and  drove  side  by  side  and  flirted  for 
quite  some  time.  For  some  reason,  that 
moment  always  stayed  with  me— it  sounds 
ridiculous,  but  some  strange,  hopeful  con- 
nection happened  that  day." 

Hunt  has  kept  her  head  about  her,  it 
seems,  by  being  a  PBS-tote-bag  kind 
of  girl,  immersed  in  literature,  high  cul- 
ture, and  worthy  causes.  Her  house,  in 
the  unglamorous  Valley,  is  the  occasional 
converging  site  for  a  group  of  actors— 
Azaria,  Slater,  and  Mad  About  You  s  John 
Pankow  among  them— who  devote  their 
Sunday  nights  to  the  most  earnest  of  ex- 
ercises in  actorly  betterment,  the  informal 
Shakespeare  workshop,  wherein  plays  are 


spiritedly  read  aloud  and  BBC  videotat 
of  the  Royal  Shakespeare  Company  i ! 
dutifully  scrutinized.  Her  musical  tasi 
run  to  opera,  James  Taylor,  Joan  C 
borne,  and  "the  earlier,  totally  eartl 
crunchy"  Joni  Mitchell.  Her  nightsta 
is  stacked  high  with  chunky,  interesti 
books  that,  because  she  can  talk  the  ta  ■ 
you  can  tell  she's  actually  read:  Walla 
Stegner's  Angle  of  Repose,  Gabriel  Garc 
Marquez's  One  Hundred  Years  of  Sc 
tude,   Anne  Lamott's  Operating  Instri 
tions.  "There's  a  whole  group  of  Non 
em    California    writers— Annie    Lamo 
Armistead  Maupin,  Ethan  Canin— whc, 
love,"  she  says.  "They  all  mention  ea  j 
other  in  their  books.  I  just  want  to  fly  i 
there  and  go  'Can  I  be  in  your  club?' " 

But  before  you  assign  her  too  mail 
Berkeley-Berkshire  correctness  points,  t 
fore  you  get  her  completely  stuffed  in 
that  tote  bag,  she  pre-empts  any  presurn 
tions  of  sanctimony  with  that  same  ■ 
dearing   wryness    she's   assigned   Janu 
O.K.,  she's  pulling  for  Clinton  this  yer 
she's  all  for  Ted  Danson's  save-the-ocea 
campaign,  so  what  does  she  think  of  Jo; , 
Didion's  line  from  Tlxe  White  Album  abo' 
liberal  Hollywood's  being  "a  dictatorsh 
of  good  intentions  .  .  .  devoid  of  irony'"; 

"'Devoid  of  irony'?  Jesus,  she's  I 
brutal!  [Expansive  laugh.]  All  right,  we. 
all  just  go  .  .  .  fuck  ourselves!" 

This  talent  for  nimble  self-effaceme- 
has  helped  turn  her  into  a  relaxed,  con 
dent  actress  with  a  particular  gift  for  m 
ance.  There's  a  wonderful  offhandedne  j 
to  the  way  Jamie  Buchman  bustles  he 
dressed  through  her  apartment  as  sl( 
prepares  for  work,  countervailing  h 
husband's  assertion  that  khakis  are  tb 
same  thing  as  chinos  by  muttering,  "Myt 
myth,  myth:  one  is  a  color,  one  is 
style"— all  the  while  never  bothering 
break  her  stride,  or  even  lift  up  h 
head.  She's  so  real  you  can  touch  he 
Even  Reiser  gets  caught  up  in  the  cogr ' 
tive  confusion.  "We  have  that  shorthar 
way  of  speaking  that  real  married  co 
pies  have,"  he  says.  "Some  days  we'll  1 
between  scenes  in  rehearsal  and  I'll  sa 
'Can  I  get  you  a  cup  of  coffee,  honey 
er,  uh,  I  mean,  Helen?'" 

With  Hunt,  this  kind  of  confusion 
quite  easy  to  understand.  □ 


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218 


VANITY  FAIR /MAY  19' 


Planetarium 


By  MICHAEL  LUTIN 


iAURUS    C/   April  20-May  20 

s/hy  not  leave  a  nice  note  on  the  refrigerator  and  a  message  on  the  boss's 
:iswering  machine  and  take  off  for  parts  unknown?  With  Saturn  about 
>  enter  your  12th  house,  such  an  escape  must  sound  positively  peachy. 
,erhaps  you  could  find  a  cute  hideaway  in  Bristol  or  a  house  on  the  bay 
i  Sausalito,  where  you  could  knit  toaster  cozies  to  your  heart's  content 
id  sip  your  white  wine  with  nobody  the  wiser.  Even  though  working 
irough  a  problem  is  a  more  mature  solution,  with  all  the  insane  things 
Ding  on  right  over  your  head,  maybe  you  should  get  out.  If  you  can. 


-*»_V 


SCORPIO 


n> 


October  24-November  21 


Creative  work  has  always  been  the  one  solid,  blessed  retreat  from  a  world 
Scorpios  often  find  hard  to  cope  with.  If  work  loses  its  kick  with  the 
south  node  in  your  6th  house,  do  what  you  can  to  jump-start  it.  Health 
is  an  issue,  too.  Normally  when  you  come  down  with  something,  you  shut 
yourself  up  in  your  lair,  do  your  exorcist  thing,  and  come  out  looking 
like  a  million  bucks.  Try  a  new  trick,  such  as  a  pursuit  that  will  produce 
long-term  vitality.  This  is  not  a  hint  for  you  to  live  on  sheep  yogurt  and 
move  to  Siberia.  Although,  extremist  that  you  are  .  .  . 


iEMINI   S\  May  21-June  21 

I  you  were  sitting  on  a  throne  right  now,  you'd  probably  be  tearing  off 
our  crown  and  ermine  robe  and  getting  ready  to  cut  out  of  the  castle. 
<ot  that  you're  about  to  become  a  wild-eyed  rebel,  but  with  Saturn  in 
our  11th  house,  moving  toward  the  moon's  south  node  (they'll  meet  next 
'inter),  you  may  feel  rage  not  only  toward  the  repressive,  hypocritical 
straight  world"  but  also  toward  certain  associations  or  groups  that  once 
urtured  you.  Because  you  avoid  confrontations,  you'll  probably  hang  on 
luch  longer  than  you  should.  And  all  this  in  an  election  year! 


SAGITTARIUS 


November  22-December  21 


CANCER    ^J*  June  22-July  22 

Vhether  you're  a  beefy,  redneck  politico  or  a  little  lavender -and-Iace  old 
idy  who  just  wants  everybody  to  get  along  over  major  holidays,  you 
/ill  now  find  yourself  smack-dab  in  the  middle  of  a  mad  game  of  Get 
lie  Leader— the  leader  being  any  authority  figure  around,  including  your- 
lelf.  If  it  weren't  for  the  moon's  node  in  your  10th  house,  you  could 
ind  true  happiness  this  spring  and  summer  sweating  over  a  barbecue 
jid  strutting  around  in  your  don't  mind  me— I'm  just  the  cook  apron. 
Jut  you  can't  seem  to  tear  yourself  away  from  politics.  Beware. 


SI 


.EO  %JL  July  23-August  22 
four  field  of  vision  could  expand  a  thousandfold  now  as  Saturn  begins 
Is  transit  of  your  9th  house.  This  is  the  moment  to  reduce  any  gaps  that 
nay  exist  between  what  you  preach  and  what  you  practice.  Be  on  the 
ookout  for  small-minded  bigots,  because  with  Pluto  in  Sagittarius  they're 
>ound  to  be  everywhere.  Enlightened  Leos  (including  you)  can  rise  above 
he  racial/religious  nonsense  one  finds  on  TV  and  in  the  newspapers  these 
lays.  According  to  your  worldview,  all  people  on  the  face  of  the  earth 
hould  love  you,  no  matter  where  they  hail  from. 

/IRGO      ll^f     August  23-September  22 

Jecause  the  north  node  is  transiting  your  2nd  house,  this  would  be  a 
;reat  period  for  you  to  remain  loyal,  monogamous,  and  clear  in  your  role 
is  principal  (maybe  only)  breadwinner,  and  to  play  the  prosperous  nerd. 
Wi  if  it  weren't  for  the  dratted  8th  house,  maybe  you  could  do  all  that, 
nstead  you'll  be  tempted  to  waste  your  days  trying  to  get  other  people 
o  pick  up  the  tab,  figuring  out  how  to  live  forever,  or  desperately  at- 
empting  to  recapture  sexual  confidence,  none  of  which  is  really  possible 
it  this  time.  But,  hey,  far  be  it  from  any  astrologer  to  spoil  your  fun. 


Any  old  time  is  a  darned  good  time  to  fall  in  love  or  have  a  baby,  es- 
pecially if  you  come  from  a  loving  home  and  have  had  some  decent  ther- 
apy (a  very  big  if  these  days).  When  Saturn  and  the  south  node  are  both 
transiting  your  5th  house,  however,  no  matter  how  mature  and  together 
you  think  you  are,  you  rarely  expect  or  are  quite  ready  to  accept  the  price 
demanded  of  you  as  a  lover  or  a  parent.  If  anyone  can  turn  a  bad  situ- 
ation into  a  good  one,  it's  a  Sadge.  Raising  your  capacity  for  pain  could 
be  both  helpful  and  fun. 


>5 


CAPRICORN     \^     December  22-January  19 

Don't  feel  guilty  about  fear  of  abandonment,  outrage  over  lack  of 
parental  support,  or  confusion  over  how  far  family  loyalties  should  be 
allowed  to  interfere  with  your  life,  because  these  feelings  are  in  total  har- 
mony with  the  cosmic  flow  right  now.  With  the  moon's  node  at  your 
midheaven  until  next  year,  the  baby  may  be  yowling  with  an  earache, 
your  father  coughing  his  last  cough,  and  the  landlord  screaming  for  your 
eviction,  but  the  show  must  go  on,  and  so  must  you.  It  can  be  invigo- 
rating to  learn  you're  not  as  grown  up  as  you  thought  you  were. 

AQUARIUS    tji0^    January  20-February  18 

Although  nobody  ought  to  tell  you  what  you  should  or  shouldn't  do  (not 
that  you'd  listen,  anyway),  you  really  should  carry  yourself  with  the  dig- 
nity befitting  a  person  having  Jupiter  in  the  12th  house  and  Uranus  near 
the  sun.  Hold  fast  to  the  principles  of  high  consciousness  (if  you  must 
seek  the  help  of  a  minister  or  a  phrenologist,  that's  your  business).  Don't 
be  too  shook  up  over  sibling  problems  or  get  distracted  by  the  cheap  talk 
of  the  gossips  next  door.  Put  yourself  in  a  lovingly  wise  and,  if  possible, 
silent  state  now.  It's  likely  nobody  will  understand  you,  anyway. 


X 


PISCES  ^T\  February  19~Marcb  20 
The  word  "Pisces"  should  evoke  images  of  fluffy-winged  angels  and 
strawberry  Jell-O  heaped  with  Reddi-wip.  Members  of  your  sign  are  sup- 
posed to  spend  their  days  memorizing  hymns  for  their  gig  in  heaven's 
choir.  They  should  always  be  acting  and  looking  as  sweet  and  delicious- 
ly  naughty  as  a  dessert  about  to  slide  into  a  hungry,  self-indulgent  mouth. 
With  the  moon's  south  node  dancing  around  your  2nd  house,  however, 
all  you  see  is  money,  money,  money!  Who  is  that  beggar  out  in  the 
street?  Is  it  you,  or  just  your  fear  of  what  you  could  become? 


.IBRA    £f    September  23-October  23 

iVhen  are  relationships  easy?  Almost  never.  In  their  infancy,  of  course, 
>efore  the  whole  truth  is  out,  relationships  are  always  wonderful.  During 
he  various  stages  of  their  evolution,  relationships  pass  through  harmo- 
tious  moments  and  tranquil  periods.  Right  now,  though,  as  Chiron  tran- 
;its  your  sign  with  the  moon's  north  node,  you're  faced  with  challenges 
hat  could  make  any  Libra  bite  right  through  a  bullet.  Will  an  honest 
ook  at  the  whole  truth  strengthen  the  bond  or  wreck  it?  Do  you  hang 
n  there?  Or  do  you  get  out  while  you've  still  got  your  teeth? 

/ANITY  FAIR /MAY  1996 


ARIES  f  March  21-April  19 
Considering  the  hardship  and  embarrassment  you've  endured,  you  should 
be  crowned  with  laurel  leaves  and  carried  through  the  streets,  not  reject- 
ed, passed  over,  or  ignored.  Human  nature  being  what  it  is,  though,  peo- 
ple tend  to  detach  and  pull  away  and  wait  for  you  to  sink,  even  if  they 
don't  write  you  off.  With  Saturn  and  the  south  node  in  your  sign,  you've 
got  to  fight  to  regain  respect.  In  the  process,  don't  get  so  angry  that  even 
your  most  loyal  followers  eventually  get  fed  up  and  leave  you,  which 
won't  do  much  for  an  already  smarting  ego— yours,  that  is. 

219 


NBC's  answer  to  Jim  McKay 

(without  the  yellow  jacket),  Bob  Costas  is  the 

most  beloved  sports  broadcaster  of 

his  generation.  This  month  he  takes  a  swing 

at  KF.'s  Proust  Questionnaire 


Bob  Costas 


What  is  your  idea  of  perfect  happiness? 

The  springtime  warble  of  the  birds  through  a  breezy 
window,  a  refreshing  quaff  of  pilsner,  and  all  the  time 
I  need  to  review  Larry  King's  Monday  column. 

What  is  your  current  state  of  mind? 

Bemused. 

Which  words  or  phrases  do  you  most  overuse? 

"Here's  the  two-two  pitch  ..." 

What  is  your  favorite  occupation? 

Baseball  announcer.  On  the  radio.  In  the  50s. 

What  is  your  greatest  fear? 

Marge  Schott  in  a  lime  teddy. 

What  is  your  greatest  extravagance? 

Absurdly  high  phone  bills. 

220 


What  is  your  favorite  journey? 

Over  the  Brooklyn  Bridge  to  Patsy's  Pizza  on 
Old  Fulton  Street. 

When  and  where  were  you  happiest? 

A  long-ago  midnight  in  Vegas,  the  dice  in  my  hand  and 
Lola  Falana  on  my  arm. 

What  do  you  consider  the  most  overrated  virtue? 

Height. 

What  do  you  dislike  most  about  your  appearance? 

The  maze  of  tattoos  crisscrossing  my  torso— what  could  I 
have  been  thinking? 

Which  talent  would  you  most  like  to  have? 

I've  always  wished  I  could  tap-dance. 

If  you  could  change  one  thing  about  yourself, 
what  would  it  be? 

I  could  probably  stand  to  be  a  bit  more  punctual. 

If  you  could  change  one  thing  about  your  family, 
what  would  it  be? 

Well,  we're  all  hoping  Aunt  Gertrude  is  out  of  the  pen  b 
Christmas. 

What  do  you  regard  as  the  lowest  depth  of  misery? 

A  red-eye  flight  next  to  a  guy  who  is  incensed  his  alma 
mater  didn't  get  an  N.C.A.A.  bid. 

On  what  occasion  do  you  lie? 

When  a  moody  drifter  asks  me  for  directions. 

What  do  you  most  value  in  your  friends? 

Perspective. 

Who  is  your  favorite  hero  of  fiction? 

Alfalfa. 

What  are  your  favorite  names? 

Liberace  and  <?*. 

What  is  it  that  you  most  dislike? 

Being  misquoted  or  misrepresented. 

What  do  you  consider  your  greatest  achievement? 

That  some  of  what  I've  done  has  earned  the  appreciation 
of  reasonable  people. 

How  would  you  like  to  die? 

On  a  day  when  no  really  famous  or  accomplished 
people  died. 

What  is  your  motto? 

Actually  I  have  two:  "Look  before  you  leap"  and  "He  wh 
hesitates  is  lost." 

VANITY  FAIR /MAY  19 


Will 


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a    a 


' 


YFAIR 


N°430 


June  1996 


Features 


INNOCENTS  ABROAD 

The  cold,  the  mud,  and  the  land  mines  haven't 

dampened  the  all-American  idealism  of  the  U.S.  peacekeeping 

troops  in  Bosnia.  At  Shark  City  base,  outside  Tuzla, 

Harry  Benson  captures  the  spirit  of  '96 


FIRST  ACTION  HEROINE 

Firooz  Zahedi  and  Toby  Young  spotlight  Rene  Russo, 
who  follows  up  her  Get  Shorty  success  with  roles  opposite 
Kevin  Costner  and  Mel  Gibson 


121 


130 


THE  PROFESSIONAL 

Tom  Cruise,  who  meets  a  fresh  challenge  as 
producer-star  of  the  big  summer  movie  Mission:  Impossible, 
gives  Jennet  Conant  an  unguarded  view  of  his  life  with 
Nicole  Kidman,  as  well  as  the  first-ever 
joint  interview  with  Hollywood's  top  couple. 
Photographs  by  Annie  Leibovitz 


132 


DESPERATELY  LEAKING  SUSAN 

Lawyer  Susan  Thomases,  Hillary's  closest  confidante, 
has  wielded  enormous  power  in  the  Clinton  White  House. 
But  with  two  best-sellers  exposing  Thomases' 
weaknesses,  Jacob  Weisberg  reports,  the  First  Lady's 
"enforcer"  is  fighting  for  her  own  survival. 
Portrait  by  Annie  Leibovitz 


138 


MIGHTY  MOLIERE 

As  Ingmar  Bergman's  elaborate  production  of 

The  Misanthrope  comes  to  the  Brooklyn  Academy  of  Music, 

Pascal  Chevallier  and  David  Daniel  applaud  the 

revived  reign  of  Louis  XIV 


144 


THREE  FACES  OF  EVIL 

Overshadowed  by  the  O.J.  spectacle,  the  second  trial 
of  Lyle  and  Erik  Menendez  was  virtually  forgotten. 
Dominick  Dunne  takes  the  witness  stand  for  a  last  look 
at  this  tragic  double-murder  case— and  a  final 
chapter  in  the  epic  Simpson  saga 


146 


FULL  MOUNA  RISING 

Mouna  Al-Rashid  is  joining  the  jet  set.  Freed  from  her 
veiled  existence  as  the  wife  of  a  Saudi  billionaire, 
she  tells  Bob  Colacello  about  her  change  of  heart  and 
her  multimillion-dollar  diamond  deals. 
Photographs  by  Eric  Boman 


154 


0  LUCKY  MAN 

Son  of  a  big-band  legend  and  a  musical  talent  in 

his  own  right,  Peter  Duchin  called  the  estates  of  Averell 

and  "Ma"  Harriman  home.  In  an  excerpt  from  his  memoir, 

Duchin  evokes  the  charmed  circle  created  by  his 

surrogate  family— and  its  fractured  end  at  the  hands 

of  Harriman's  third  wife,  Pamela 


158 


(Continued  on  page  16) 


chemistry 
CLINIQUE 


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ITYMIR 


June  1996 


(Continued  from  page  12) 


Columns 


STAR  OF  ZION 

A  favorite  of  America's  media  elite,  Benjamin  Netanyahu 

could  be  Israel's  next  prime  minister. 

David  Margolick  finds  the  hawkish  Netanyahu's 

political  fortunes  much  improved  by 

the  recent  terror  in  Jerusalem  and  Tel  Aviv. 

Photographs  by  John  Stoddart 


THE  PHILLIPS  COLLECTION 

David  Kamp  hails  the  publication  of  John  Phillips's 
handsome  photographic  memoir  of  his  mid-century  tour 
of  duty  as  Life's  European  correspondent 


44 


70 


HITLER'S  GHOST 

One  of  the  most  informed— and  most  infamous- 
experts  on  Nazi  Germany  has  been  silenced. 
With  St.  Martin's  Press  halting  publication  of  a  revelatory 
Goebbels  biography,  Christopher  Hitchens  wonders 
just  who  is  afraid  of  David  Irving 


72 


ENDLESS  YOUTH 

Interviewing  renowned  medical  experts  and  their 
elated  subjects,  Gail  Sheehy  investigates  a 
powerful  new  anti-aging  treatment  that  could  extend 
baby-boomer  life  spans  into  the  90s  and  100s. 
Photographs  by  Jonathan  Becker  and  Art  Streiber  .  . 


76 


THE  GOLD  DIGGERS 

When  high-profile  Hollywood  producers  Peter  Guber 
and  Jon  Peters  left  Sony  $3.2  billion  poorer,  it  was  simply 
the  latest  stop  along  a  trail  of  financial  mayhem. 
Kim  Masters  and  Nancy  Griffin  follow  the  money  in 
an  excerpt  from  their  new  book,  Hit  and  Run 


94 


V  Vanities 

CANVASSING  ALEXANDRA  NECHITA 

George  Wayne  head-butts  Dennis  Rodman; 

V.F.  s  third  annual  Oscar  celebration 109 

I  Et  Cetera 

EDITOR'S  LETTER:  Air  Vanity  Fair 20 

CONTRIBUTORS 28 

LETTERS:  Boys'  town 40 

PLANETARIUM:  You  can  teach  an  old  Gemini  new  tricks 180 

CREDITS 185 

SOCIAL  STUDY:  Timothy  Leary  trips  on  the  Proust  Questionnaire  .  .  .  186 

Printed  in  the  U.S.A. 

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bdilor  s  Letter 

\ir  Vanity  Fair 


Of  Vanity  Fair's  four-dozen-odd  con- 
tributors, writers,  and  photographers, 
five  are  based  in  Los  Angeles,  nine 
in  Washington,  D.C.,  one  in  Philadel- 
phia, four  in  London,  one  in  Monaco, 
one  in  Florence,  and  two  in  Paris. 
The  rest  all  live  in  New  York.  And 
remarkably— and  this  is  good  news 
for  the  airline  and  hotel  industries— it  seems 
that  every  story  we  do  involves  travel  to  a 
city  other  than  the  ones  in  which  the  writer  and  photogra- 
pher live.  With  the  exception  of  editors,  who  sit  around 
the  office  all  day  watching  their  hair  fall  out  and  talking 
to  friends  on  the  telephone,  travel  is  very  much  a  part  of 
the  job  here  at  Vanity  Fair— and  frequent-flier  miles  in  the 
six  digits  are  a  corollary  occupational  hazard. 

This  month  is  a  fitting  example.  David  Margolick,  who 
recently  left  The  New  York  Times,  where  he  had  been  a  star 
reporter  for  12  years,  to  come  to  Vanity  Fair  as  a  con- 
tributing editor,  spent  a  month  in  Tel  Aviv,  Jerusalem,  and 
the  Golan  Heights  for  his  compelling  profile  of  Benjamin 
Netanyahu,  the  hawkish  challenger  to  Israeli  prime  minister 
Shimon  Peres.  Harry  Benson  flew  into  the  mine-filled 
"Confrontational  Zone"  near  Tuzla  for  his  photo-essay  on 


the  U.S.  peacekeeping  troops  in  Bosnia.  Bob 
Colacello  went  to  Paris  to  interview  rene- 
gade Saudi  divorcee  Mouna  Al-Rashid.  Gail 
Sheehy  interviewed  doctors  in  Florida,  Cali- 
fornia, Washington,  D.C.,  and  New  York  to 
find  out  just  how  far  the  human  life  span 
can  be  stretched.  Pascal  Chevallier  traveled 
to  Stockholm  for  his  dazzling  photographs 
of  Ingmar  Bergman's  new  production  of 
Moliere's  The  Misanthrope.  And  Jacob  Weis- 
berg  hopped  on  the  New  York-Washington  shuttle  for  his 
profile  of  Hillary  Clinton's  controversial  chum  Susan  Thomases. 
Jennet  Conant  and  Annie  Leibovitz  both  went  to  Los  An- 
geles to  provide  word  and  image  for  the  cover  story  on 
Tom  Cruise.  And  Dominick  Dunne  went  back  to  Los  An- 
geles for  five  weeks  to  witness  the  final  days  of  the  Menen- 
dez  murder  trial— a  case  he  has  covered  for  V.F.  for  six  years. 
All  told,  more  than  75,000  miles  were  logged  in  the 
preparation  of  this  issue.  And  that  doesn't  count  the  mes- 
senger sent  across  town  to  fetch  the  manuscript  of  Peter 
Duchin's  new  memoir,  which  is  excerpted  on  page  158. 


hhGL\ 


Tom  Cruise  throws  caution  to  the  wind,  above,  wearing  a  suit  by  Helmut 
Lang,  shirt  by  Polo  by  Ralph  Lauren,  gloves  by  Giorgio  Armani,  and  shoes 
by  Prada.  On  the  cover,  the  red-hot  superstar  sports  shirt  and  pants  by 
Polo  by  Ralph  Lauren.  Tank  top  by  Polo  by  Ralph  Lauren  Gentleman's 


Underwear.  Shoes  by  Prada.  Grooming  products  from  Clinique  Skin 
Supplies  for  Men.  Hair  by  Sally  Hershberger.  Grooming  by  Lucienne 
Zammit.  Props  styled  by  David  Ross.  Styled  by  Kim  Meehan. 
Photographed  exclusively  for  V.F.  by  Annie  Leibovitz. 


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GIORGIO  ARMANI 


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A  Cardmember  Goes  Shopping 


JERRY  SEINFELD 

{Comedian,  Author,  Cereal  Lover} 


1.  Chair 

2.  Globe 

3.  Rug 


8.  Shoes 

9.  Lamp 

10.  Basketball 


4.  Shoe  Polisher    11.  Computer 


15.  Television 

16.  Pez  Collection 

17.  Cereal  Bowls 

18.  Cereal 


5.  Sink 

6.  Goldfish 

7.  Vacuum 


12.  Coffee  Table       19.  Fridge 

13.  Video  Game      20.  Satellite  Dish 


14.  Cleansers 


21.  Bike  &  Stand 


The  American  Express*  Card  is  welcome  at  all 
kinds  of  places.  Just  ask  Jerry,  who  uses  his  Card 
for  everyday  items,  as  well  as  for  the  things  that 
make  him,  well,  Jerry.  In  fact,  it's  so  widely  accepted, 
Jerry  uses  it  wherever  he  goes.  No  kidding. 

{  You  can  find  items  like  Jerry's  at  these  establishments: } 
The  Sports  Authority        Crate  &  Barrel  Furniture 
RadioShack  Rand  McNally  Travel  Store 

Petland  Discount  Hammacher  Schlemmer 

E  W.  Woolworth  Co.  Sears 

{And  if  you're  in  Jerry's  neighborhood,  New  York  City: } 
ABC  Carpet  &  Home         Food  Emporium 
Bicycle  Habitat  Palazzetti 

Desco  Vacuums  The  Lighting  Center,  Ltd. 

Nobody  Beats  The  Wiz 


Cards 


M 


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CONCORD  ON... 


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the  five  senses  in  addition  to  delighting 
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Harmony  can  stir  the  spirit  as  well  as 
soothe  the  soul.  Consider  the  harmonious 
interplay  of  petals  within  the  rose.  Or  a 
full  chorus  soaring  to  the  last  movement 


of  Beethoven's  Ninth  Symphony. 

Can  there  be  beauty  without  harmony? 
Not  if  one  agrees  that  beauty  arises  from  the 
perceived  harmony  of  an  object.  An  object, 
often  made  up  of  divergent  parts  that  come 
together  as  an  aesthetic  whole. 

Thus,  the  highest  praise  one  can  bestow  on 
an  intricate  timepiece  is  "created  in  harmony." 


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E    V    E    N    T    S 


VANITY  FAIR 


\    N    I) 


()    P    P    ()    H    T    I     N    I    T    I    E    S 


What  Would 
fou  Like  To  See? 

Johnson  &  Johnson  Vision  Products  and 
Vanity  Fair  invite  you  to  try  the  ultimate 
contact  lens-and  see  what  you've  been 

missing.  Now  through  July  15,  buy  a  2-month 
supply  of  1-Day  Acuvue®    Disposable 

Contact  Lenses  and  get  a  third  month  free*. 

And  enter  the  "What  Would  You  Like  to 
See?"  drawing  and  win  a  beautiful  book  of 
photographs.  To  enter,  send  a  postcard  with 
your  name,  address,  and  phone  number  to 
Vanity  Fair.  The  winner  will  be  chosen  by  a 
random  drawing.  No  purchase  necessary. 

Send  entries  to: 

Vanity  Fair  1-Day  Acuvue  Drawing 

350  Madison  Avenue,  5th  Floor 

New  York,  NY   10017 

"Offer  valid  for  first  time  purchase  only. 


Contest  entries  must  be  received  by  August  1,  1996. 
Prize  value  approx.  $100.00.  Sponsor  is  not  responsible 
for  lost,  late,  or  misdirected  entries.  Winner  will  be 
selected  in  a  random  drawing  on  or  about  August  10, 
1996.  Open  to  U.S.  residents  (except  Puerto  Rico),  age 
18  or  older  as  of  May  16,  1996.  Employees  of  Johnson  & 
Johnson  and  Conde  Nast  are  no:  eligible.  Subject  to  all 
federal,  state,  and  local  laws  and  regulations.  Any  income 
taxes  on  prize  are  the  responsibility  of  the  winner.  Odds 

of  winning  depend  on  the  number  of  entries  received. 

Void  where  prohibited.  For  the  name  of  the  winner,  send 

a  self-addressed,  stamped  envelope  after  August  10.  1996 

to  Vanity  Fair  1-Day  Acuvue  Winner,  350  Madison  Ave., 

5th  Floor,  New  York.  NY  10017,  attn.  T.  Townsend. 


Vanity  Pair  is  pleased 
to  announce  the  first  annual 


Nantucket 


June    19-23,    1996 

Come   visit    Nantucket's    shores    and    experience    an 
insider's    look   at    today's   most    talented    screenwriters, 

EVENTS    INCLUDE: 


•  Screenings  of  original  works  and  works-in-progress 

•  Workshops  and  seminars  with  renowned  screenwriters 

•  Script  readings  with  celebrity  casts 

•  Special  tributes 

•  An  award  ceremony  for  best  original  screenplay 

•  A  closing-night  celebration 

For  more  information:  call : 212-642-6339  fax:212-473-0713 


Through  the  Grapevine 

Join  Clarins,  Mitsubishi,  and  TAG  Heuer  at  the 
10th  annual  Wine  Country  Film  Festival,  taking  place  July  18  -  August  11. 

During  the  first  weekend  of  the  festival,  receive  a  complimentary  hand  massage 

and  product  samples  from  Clarins,  test  drive  a  sporty  new  Mitsubishi  Eclipse 

Spyder  Convertible,  and  pick  up  your  official  TAG  Heuer  screening  schedule  card. 

More  than  50  films  will  be  presented  at  the  festival,  many  al  fresco  in  the  glorious 

California  wine  country  outside  San  Francisco.  The  festival  begins  at  the 

Rutherford  Hill  Winery  in  Napa  Valley  and  concludes  at  the  Viansa  Winery  in 

Sonoma  Valley.  For  program,  ticket,  and  travel  information,  call  707-935-3456. 


Ambition, 
success 

and  the 

ultimate 
price 


Shattering 
lass 

A  powerful  novel 
you  will  not  forget 

Nancy-Gay  Rotstein 

"Vividly  outlines  the  lives  of  three 
successful  women  who  reminisce 
about  what  they  have  sacrificed  to 
get  what  they  want . . .  She  brings 
her  protagonists  to  life  with 
sympathy.  -PUBLISHERS  WEEKLY 


At  bookstores  now 
m  FARRAR  STRAUS  GIROUX 


Contributors 


28 


After  capturing  the  1996  Vanity  Fair  Oscar  party  in  Los  Angeles,  documented 

in  pictures  on  page  114.  photographer  Peter  Beard  returned  to  Hog 

Ranch,  his  home  in  Langata,  Kenya,  to  shoot  Azzedine  Alalia's  fall  collection. 

His  largest  one-man  rbow  ever  will  open  at  the  Centre  National  de  la 

Photographic  in  Paris  on  November  6. 


Contributing  editor  Kim  Masters  and 
Nancy  Griffin,  deputy  editor  at  Pre- 
miere, arc  co-authors  of  Hit  and  Run: 
How  Jon  Peters  and  Peter  Guber  Took 
Sony  for  a  Ride  in  Hollywood,  due  out 
from  Simon  &  Schuster  next  month 
and  excerpted  in  this  issue. 

Contributing  editor  David  Kamp  pro- 
filed actress  Helen  Hunt  in  last 
month's  Vanity  Fair. 


Contributing  editor  Gail  Sheehy's 
best-selling  book  New  Passages:  Mapping 
Your  Life  Across  Time  (Random  House) 

will  be  the  subject  of  a  two-hour 

prime-time  television  special  set  to  air 

in  late  summer.  On  page  16,  she 

continues  her  exploration  into  new  territories 

of  adulthood  with  a  look  at  a  scientific 

revolution  in  anti-aging  that  could  push  the 

baby-boomer  life  span  to  a  century. 

(Continued  on  page  32) 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


BBHHHIW 


Picasso 


a   n 


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Left  to  right:  Portraits  of  Marie -Therese  Walter 

Bust  of  a  Girl,  1926.  Musee  Picasso,  Paris  •  Bather  with  Beach  Ball,  1932.  The  Museum  of  Modern  Art  • 

Girl  Before  a  Mirror,  1932.  The  Museum  of  Modern  Art  •  Portrait  of  a  Young  Woman,  1936.  Musee  Picasso,  Paris 

Photo  R.M.N.  ©1996  Estate  of  Pablo  Picasso/ Artists  Rights  Society  (ARS).  NY 


Portraiture 


Enter  Pablo  Picasso's  world  through  220  paintings  and  drawings  of  those 
who  mattered  most  to  the  artist.  His  family.  His  friends.  His  lovers.  Picasso's 
fascination  with  the  combination  of  a  person's  physical  and  emotional 
attributes  led  him  to  continually  devise  new  ways  to  treat  the  portrait.  Through  his 
art  we  can  trace  the  progression  of  modernism  from  the  classically  influenced 
paintings  of  the  late  19th  century,  through  the  blue  and  rose  periods  of  the  early 
20th  century,  and  on  into  cubism  and  surrealism.  This  first  comprehensive  portrait 
exhibition,  Picasso  and  Portraiture:  Representation  and  Transformation,  demonstrates 
the   range   of   Picasso's   work   in   all    its   stylistic   and   psychological   diversity. 

The  Museum  of  Modern  Art,  New  York,  NY,  April  28  -  September  17,  1996 
For  information  call  (212)708-9480.  Or  visit  MoMA's  website  at  www.moma.org 

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Coniributors 

(Continued  from  page  28) 


"I  have  been  to  Desert  Storm,  Desert  Shield.  Haiti,  Somalia,  but  those  military  exercises 

were  like  a  holiday  camp  in  comparison  to  Bosnia, "  says  contributing  photographer 

Harry  Benson  /'above,  with  his  assistant  Jonathan  Delano),  whose  photographs  of  the  U.S. 

peacekeeping  mission  appear  on  page  121.  "However,  what  struck  me  was 

that  the  morale  was  excellent,  that  the  men  and  women  knew  why  they  were  there" 


Contributing  editor  Jennet  Conant 

says  that  her  interview  with  Tom 
Cruise  and  Nicole  Kidman  was  "like 
old  home  week.  We  found  ourselves 
catching  up  on  our  children  and  jok- 
ing about  how  many  times  we've 
seen  The  Lion  King." 


After  12  years  covering  legal  affairs  for 

The  New  York  Times,  including 

such  major  stories  as  the  0.  J.  Simpson 

and  William  Kennedy  Smith  trials,  David 

Margolick  has  become  V.F.V  newest 
contributing  editor.  On  page  44,  he  reports 

on  Benjamin  Netanyahu,  the  man 
who  would  be  Israel's  next  prime  minister. 


32 


World-renowned  pianist  and  band- 
leader Peter  Duchin  and  his  orches- 
tra have  played  every  type  of  event 
from  White  House  parties  to  a  50th- 
anniversary  celebration  at  which  the 
married  couple  were  the  only  guests. 
Duchin's  memoir.  Ghost  of  a  Chance, 
written  with  Charles  Michener,  is  ex- 
cerpted in  this  issue  and  will  be  pub- 
lished next  month  by  Random  House. 

Jacob  Weisberg  is  the  national  polit- 
ical columnist  for  New  York  maga- 
zine and  a  contributing  editor  to  The 
New  Republic.  His  book.  In  Defense 
of  Government,  has  just  been  pub- 
lished by  Scribner. 

Special  correspondent  Dominick 
Dunne  is  working  on  a  new  novel, 
Another  City.  Not  My  Own,  set  in 
Los  Angeles  during  the  Simpson  tri- 
al. The  CBS  mini-series  based  on  his 
last  novel,  A  Season  in  Purgatory, 
aired  in  May. 

"It  may  seem  Mouna  Al-Rashid  has 
come  out  of  nowhere,"  says  special 
correspondent  Bob  Colaeello  of  the 
socially  ambitious  beauty  who  recent- 
ly parted  from  her  billionaire  Saudi 
husband.  "But  she  told  me  she  spent 
all  those  years  in  Riyadh  reading 
magazines  like  Vogue  and  W,  memo- 
rizing the  names  and  faces  of  every- 
one she  wanted  to  meet." 

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VAMJIYFAIR 

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36 


VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


■: 


The  spirit  of  Marlboro  in  a  low  tar  cigare 


SURGEON  GENERAL 
Now  Greatly 


— - 


"tar,"  0.8  mg  nicotine  av.  per  cigarette  by  FTC  method. 


1 


O  Philip  Morris  Inc.  1996 


li    ~    • 


OPl 


4 


BOYS'  TOWN 


^oulevardiers:  The  cover  boys  stop  traffic  on  Sunset. 


I  would  like  to  commend  you  on  the 
cover  of  your  April  issue  ['"Hollywood 
'96:  From  Sundance  to  Sunset"],  featur- 
ing some  of  the  most  promising  actors 
of  tomorrow.  Kudos  to  you  for  recog- 
nizing the  beautiful  and  amazing  Beni- 
cio  Del  Toro  before  everyone  else. 

AMY  WILSON 
Dallas.  Texas 

The  rising  male  stars  on  this  year's  Hol- 
lywood cover  are  confident,  casual,  and 
clothed.  What  a  contrast  to  last  year's 
cover,  which  featured  the  most  powerful 
young  women  in  Hollywood  dressed  for 
the  auction  block  in  high  heels  and  a  flea- 
spoonful  of  lingerie. 

A l  BR IN   DUFFY 
Toronto.  Ontario,  Canada 

Imagine  my  shock  and  disappointment 
when  I  saw  that  the  men  on  the  April  cov- 
er were  fully  clothed!  Based  on  last  year's 
Hollywood  issue,  1  expected  .  .  .  less. 

KETRA  OBERLANDER 
Kansas  City,  Missouri 

Do  these  young  men  have  something  to 
hide?  Take  it  off.  boys! 

DEBORAH  DALE 

LEIGH  \\\  WATERFALL 

[ucson,  Arizona 

Whew!  Thank  goodness  Will  Smith 
didn't  fall  off  the  edge  of  the  three-panel 
cover  of  your  homage  to  Hollywood!  If 

40 


your  April  issue  is  any  sign  of  what 
African -American  moviegoers  have  to 
look  forward  to  in  the  movie  industry, 
then  we're  in  sad  shape  indeed. 

BARBARA  SAMUELS 
Chicago.  Illinois 

The  cover  of  your  April  issue  is  most 
indicative  of  the  moral  decadence  to 
which  this  country  has  sunk.  Any  maga- 
zine that  puts  a  bunch  of  thugs  on  its 
cover  is  nothing  but  garbage. 

CELESTE  A.  AND  J.  E.  SNEED  JR. 
Ozark.  Alabama 

How  comforting  to  us  mortals  to  dis- 
cover that  even  Hollywood's  hottest 
hunks  can  suffer  a  bad-hair  day! 

JACK  VEDRA 

Chicago.  Illinois 


One  Man's  Meat 


A  few  things  I  went  wild  over  in  your 
stupendous  second  Hollywood  issue: 
Photos  of  the  denizens  of  Tinseltown  — 
ranging  from  the  hard-cash  crisp  (Mel 
Gibson.  Angela  Bassett)  to  the  down- 
right dreamy  (Jodie  Foster)— and  recog- 
nition of  new  talent,  especially  that  of 
Kevin  Spacey.  You  saved  the  best  for 
last  with  the  reunited  talent  of  Elaine 
May  and  Mike  Nichols. 

VICTORIA  CUNHA 
Chicago.  Illinois 


Firooz  Zahedi's  portrait  of  the  cast  of 
To  Kill  a  Mockingbird  brought  tears  to 
my  eyes.  Yes,  Gregory  Peck,  you  were 
good  in  that  movie! 

DEE  JOELL 

Philadelphia,  Pennsylvania 

For  a  while,  it  seemed  that  only  ex- 
tinct dinosaurs  ran  Hollywood.  Annie 
Leibovitz's  photo  of  women  directors 
shows  that  people  in  power  are  begin- 
ning to  change. 

MEAGHAN  KIMBALL 

Beverly  Hills,  California 

Your  picture  of  Antonio  Banderas  de- 
graded the  sultry,  sensual,  secretive  qual- 
ity that  makes  him  so  appealing.  I  would 
much  rather  look  into  his  eyes  and  leave 
the  rest  to  my  imagination. 

VERNA  KALE 
Chapel  Hill.  North  Carolina 

A  friend  of  mine  said  that  the  word 
"Hollywood"  appeared  on  the  waist- 
band of  Antonio  Banderas's  swimsuit, 
but  I  confess  I  couldn't  draw  my  eyes 
up  that  far.  (Helmut  Newton  must  have 
very  steady  hands!) 

REBECCA  HICKS 

North  Ridgeville.  Ohio 

After  getting  an  eyeful  of  Antonio  Ban- 
deras in  your  otherwise  excellent  portfo- 
lio, I  thought  to  myself.  Well,  of  course, 
what  woman  in  her  right  mind  wouldn  'i 

VANITY  FAIR/JUNE  1996 


bloDmingdole's 


EM 


m 


Sheer  shine!  Sheer  perfection! 
12  mouth-watering  colours.  SPF  6. 

INTRODUCING 

HYDRASOLEIL 

CHANEL 


tellers 


trash  Don  Johnson  for  a  piece  of  that? 
Me.  that's  who.  One  look  at  that  over- 
hung side  of  beef  and  I  was  ready  to 
turn  vegetarian  on  the  spot. 

PAT  MYKETA 
West  St.  Paul.  Manitoba.  Canada 

The  truly  sexy  centerfold  was  of  the  styl- 
ishly smart,  fully  dressed  Kevin  Spacey. 
He  emanates  more  eroticism  and  sensual- 
ity with  one  bare  hand  (languidly  draped 
over  the  edge  of  a  table  in  Annie  Lei- 
bovitz's  exquisite  photograph)  than  all 
those  other,  half-naked  babes  in  toyland. 

PAMELA  W.  MILLER 
Los  Angeles,  California 

Your  Hollywood  issue  painted  a  scary 
picture  of  a  paranoid,  small-town  com- 
munity ruled  by  cruelty,  greed,  and  over- 
indulgence. Surely,  this  couldn't  have 
been  your  intention— or  did  I  miss  a 
double  layer  of  irony  here? 

SANDRA  HEERMA  VAN  VOSS 
Cottingham.  England 

You  know  what  I  like  about  your  maga- 
zine'.' Your  very  deft  lifting  up  of  the  lo- 
tus leaves  so  one  can  see  all  the  machi- 
nations going  on  in  the  Lotusland  pond. 
AMANDA  DON 
Tucson.  Arizona 


Frank  Talk  About  Lew 


Universal  appeal:  Lew  Wasserman 
in  the  backyard  of  bis  Beverly  Hills  home. 


The  article  about  the  Wassermans  ["The 
Last  Emperor,"  by  Dominick  Dunne, 
April]  renewed  my  faith  in  marriage  and 
mankind. 

STUART  ALIUS 

Philadelphia.  Pennsylvania 

In  the  summer  of  1970  I  worked  at  a 
Universal  Studios  food  pavilion.  One  eve- 
ning at  about  7:30  a  water  pipe  burst.  At 


HE  BEST  WAY  TO  HELP  KIDS  ON  THE  INSIDE 
IS  TO  SHOW  THEM  THE  OUTSIDE 


Many  city  children  have  never  seen  an  open  field,  a  star-filled  sky,  or  even 
something  as  simple  as  a  garden.  The  Fresh  Air  Fund  may  be  the  only 
chance  for  a  kid  to  see  what  life  is  like  outside  of  the  city.  With  a  donation 
of  $338,  you  can  send  a  child  to  the  country  for  two  weeks  this  summer.  To 
help,  send  your  donation  to  The  Fresh  Air  Fund,  1040  Avenue  of 
the  Americas,  New  York,  NY  10018.  Give  to  THEFRESH  AIR  FUND 

A  copy  of  the  lasl  financial  reports  filed  with  the  Department  of  State  rr  ay  be  obtained  by  writing  to  The  New  York  State  Department  ol  Stale.  Office 
of  Chanties  Registration,  Albany.  NY  12231.  or  The  Fresh  Air  Fund,  ll  4  1  Avenue  of  the  Americas.  New  York.  NY  10018  ©  1995  The  Fresh  Air  Fund 


7:40  the  fry  cook  and  I  called  it  quits; 
then  two  gentlemen  ordered  hot  dogs.  I 
explained  that  the  booth  was  now  closed. 

At  8:30  the  following  morning  my 
phone  rang:  I  was  fired.  Why?  Lew 
Wasserman  had  caught  me  closing  the 
food  stand  before  eight  o'clock.  Through 
sobs  I  tried  to  explain  what  had  hap- 
pened. I  was  put  on  hold;  then  my  boss 
barked  at  me  to  get  in  right  away.  With- 
out smile  or  comment  he  rehired  me. 

A  couple  of  years  ago  a  friend  was 
having  lunch  with  an  acquaintance  of 
hers  at  Universal  and  my  name  came 
up.  Her  friend's  eyes  lit  up.  "Is  that  the 
Susan  Lehman  that  was  fired  by  Lew 
Wasserman?"  Thank  you,  Mr.  Wasser- 
man. Now,  would  you  read  my  script? 

SUSAN  LEHMAN 
Wayne.  Pennsylvania 


The  Real  McCall 


42 


Exceptionally  funny  writers  who  are 
also  brilliantly  gifted  visual  artists  have 
never  been  in  huge  supply,  so  the  rela- 
tive anonymity  of  Bruce  McCall  ["Hol- 
lywood "37,"  April]  is  a  baffling  mys- 
tery. He  is  a  true  original. 

DAVID  ENGLISH 

Somcrville.  Massachusetts 


Sophisticated  Lady 

I  was  so  thrilled  to  see  a  picture  of 
"The  Class  of  '27"  ["Two  Nights  on  the 
Town,"  by  Ralph  Barton  and  David 
Cowles]  in  the  April  edition.  You  see,  I 
was  a  reader  of  Vanity  Fair  in  the  20s— 
sophisticated  teenager  that  I  was!  I've 
been  so  pleased  to  see  the  renaissance  of 
V.F.,  but  this  was  an  orgy  of  nostalgia! 

EDNA  PEARL 

La  Jolla.  California 

CORRECTION:  Dae  to  an  error  in  transmis- 
sion of  final  page  proofs,  the  following  material 
was  not  included  in  the  American  edition  of  "The 
Man  Who  Knew  Too  Much,"  by  Marie  Brenner, 
in  the  May  issue:  Jeffrey  Wigand  reportedly  mar- 
ried when  he  was  very  young.  If  so,  Linda  was  his 
second  wife  and  Lucretia  his  third. 


Letters  to  the  editor  should  be  sent  with  the 
writer's  name,  address,  and  daytime  phone 
number  to:  The  Editor.  Vanity  Fair.  350  Mad- 
ison Avenue.  New  York,  New  York  10017. 
Address  electronic  mail  to  vfmail@vf.com. 
The  letters  chosen  for  publication  may  be 
edited  for  length  and  clarity. 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


wsranawwia 


There's  a  point  when  your  boss  will  be  happy  with  it, 
your  partner  will  be  happy  with  it, 
and  your  client  will  be  happy  with  it. 
That  was  two  hours  ago. 


INTRODUCING    METROPOLIS 

by  Cross 

For  those  of  vou  in  the  business  of  thinking. 
Cross  presents  Metropolis.  A  new  line  of 
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lifetime  mechanical  guarantee.  From  S;>(  to 
$120,  manufacturers  suggested  relail  price. 


There's  work  to  be  done. 


Dispatches 


STAR  OF  ZION 


Benjamin  "Bibi"  Netanyahu,  opposition  candidate 
for  prime  minister  of  Israel,  may  be  a  darling 
of  the  American  media.  But  as  bomb-shocked 

Israelis  go  to  the  polls,  Netanyahu's  political  ace  is 
his  20-year  obsession  with  terrorism 

BY  DAVID  MARGOLICK         j 


One  night  in  Los  Angeles  five 
years  ago,  well  into  his  quest 
to  become  Israel's  next  prime 
minister,  Benjamin  "Bibi"  Ne- 
tanyahu had  dinner  with  a 
group  of  liberal  American 
Jewish  activists,  Barbra  Strei- 
sand among  them.  It  had 
promised  to  be  the  most  hos- 
tile of  audiences;  several  of 
the  guests,  like  Streisand,  sup- 
ported Peace  Now,  which  fa- 
vored dramatic  compromise  with  the 
Palestinians  and  partial  withdrawal  from 
the  occupied  territories— policies  that  Ne- 
tanyahu had  adamantly  opposed.  But  in 
his  stint  as  Israel's  ambassador  to  the  Unit- 
ed Nations  and  as  a  fixture  on  CNN  and 
Nightline,  Netanyahu  had  grown  accus- 
tomed to  facing  adversaries  and,  if  not  nec- 
essarily winning  them  over,  at  least  win- 
ning their  respect. 

Netanyahu,  who  is  challenging  Israeli 
prime  minister  Shimon  Peres  in  elections 
on  May  29,  had  done  his  homework;  he 
had  made  a  point  of  seeing  Streisand's  lat- 
est movie,  Tire  Prince  of  Tides,  and  told  her 
he  liked  it.  And  he  had  adapted  his  spiel  to 
the  locale.  At  one  point  he  stared  out  the 
window,  over  the  affluent  Los  Angeles 
neighborhoods  of  Westwood  and  Brent- 
wood. "That's  the  distance  across  Israel," 
he  told  Streisand  and  the  other  peaceniks 
in  the  mellifluous,  colloquial,  accentless 
Americanized  English  that  he  had  learned 
during  high  school  near  Philadelphia  and 
college  at  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of 
Technology.    "That's   why    we    need    the 


J 


raph  by  JOHN  STODDART 


K    ^fl 

T^J^ 

Benjamin  Netanyahu 

(here  in  Israel,  1996)  is 

well  known  to  Americans 

through  his  appearances 
on  Nightline.  Inset, 
above:  Netanyahu  and 

__  ♦ 

Clinton  at  the  Knesset  in 

Jerusalem,  1994.  Left: 
right-wing  Israelis  protest 

^v^ts '  )JNwN>^y 

in  Jerusalem,  1996. 

■V.             jflPh             J^fc  mk 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 

*5rv. 


TT)fl^^^ 


Defining  the  perfect  lash. 

/De-fin-ing/adj:  1.  Superbly  separated.  2.  Lavishly 
lush.  3.  The  ultimate  in  definition.  Elizabeth  Arden's 
new  breakthrough  for  lashes.  Defining  Mascara 

Elizabeth  Arden 


Bloomingdale's    The  Bon  Marche    Burdines    Goldsmith's 
Lazarus    Macy's    Macy's/BullockVBroadwa}     Bich's    Stern's 


Dispatches 


depth    of  the    West    Bank"— as   a 
buffer  zone  for  national  defense. 

"We  couldn't  help  but  be  im- 
pressed with  the  forcefulness  and 
articulateness,"  said  Danny  Gold- 
berg, president  of  Mercury  Rec- 
ords, who  was  there.  Through  a 
spokesperson  Streisand  concurred, 
calling  him  "incredibly  charming 
and  very,  very  smart." 

Over  the  past  20  years,  Netan- 
yahu's career  has  been  made 
and  very  nearly  broken  by  crises 
far  more  serious  than  a  few  hostile 
dinner  companions.  It  was  effective- 
ly launched  some  2,500  miles  from 
Jerusalem  in  1976,  when  a  Ugandan 
soldier  in  Entebbe  shot  and  killed 
his  older  brother,  Jonathan  "Yoni" 
Netanyahu,  the  only  Israeli  soldier 
to  die  in  the  now  legendary  opera- 
tion to  free  106  hijacked  hostages. 
Bibi  Netanyahu  parlayed  his  broth- 
er's martyrdom,  along  with  power- 
ful connections  and  his  own  undeni- 


Netanyahu  speaking  in  1989.  He  has 
dismissed  the  peace  process  as  "public 
celebrations  on  manicured  lawns." 


tions  on  manicured  lawns,"  and 
Netanyahu's  hard-line  alternative, 
which  critics  contend  will  be  more 
"process"  than  "peace."  Should  the 
bombs  start  exploding  again,  or 
should  the  Israeli  assault  in  Lebanon 
end  badly  or  even  inconclusively,  Ne- 
tanyahu is  all  but  certain  to  win.  But 
the  election  could  just  as  easily  be  a 
referendum  on  Netanyahu's  charac- 
ter, as  the  Labor  Party  is  already 
making  it.  Normally,  character  is  not 
an  issue  with  Israeli  voters;  their 
leaders  hang  around  forever  and  are 
known  inside  out.  By  these  standards 
Netanyahu  is  almost  a  stranger. 
When  Netanyahu's  opponents  speak 
of  "character,"  however,  it  is  invari- 
ably a  code  word  for  "Bibigate," 
the  extraordinary  sex  scandal— in- 
volving a  purported  X-rated  video— 


In  the  case  of  the  Netanyahus,  Kennedy  comparisons  are  simply  too  tempting  to  resist. 


When  the  oldest  son  fell  in  combat,  all  hopes  were  placed  on  his  younger,  handsome  sibling. 


able  gifts,  into  the  most  meteoric  rise  in 
Israeli  political  history,  becoming  the 
leader  of  the  right-wing,  opposition  Li- 
kud Party  almost  overnight  in  1993. 

When  peace  with  the  Palestinians 
broke  out  later  that  year,  history  seemed 
poised  to  pass  by  Netanyahu,  who  proved 
far  better  at  criticizing  the  pact  between 
then  prime  minister  Yitzhak  Rabin  and 
Palestine  Liberation  Organization  leader 
Yasser  Arafat  than  at  offering  an  alterna- 
tive. Netanyahu  eventually  started  to  re- 
coup his  popularity,  only  to  fall  once 
more  last  autumn  when  Rabin  was  assas- 
sinated and  his  widow  blamed  him  for 
helping  to  foment  the  hatred  that  preced- 
ed the  murder.  Suddenly  pundits  were 
no  longer  speaking  of  Netanyahu  as  an 
Israeli  Clinton,  the  man  who  successfully 
imported  American-style  political  cul- 
ture to  his  country,  but  as  an  Israeli 
Dukakis  instead. 

But  Netanyahu,  now  46  years  old,  al- 
ways has  an  ace  up  his  sleeve  against 
Shimon  Peres  and  anybody  on  the  Is- 
raeli left:  terrorism.  Israelis  demand 
only  two  things  of  their  leaders,  said 
Tom  Segev,  a  columnist  for  the  newspa- 
per Ha  'aretz,  and  neither  of  them  is  hon- 
esty. "Israelis  will  take  corruption,  but 
not  inflation  or  terrorism,"  Segev  said. 
"They  want  to  know  how  much  their 

46 


shekel  is  worth,  and  that  there's  no 
bomb  under  their  car."  When  the  faces 
of  the  terror  victims. are  lined  up  on  the 
front  pages  of  the  Israeli  newspapers, 
like  head  shots  from  some  yearbook  of 
the  damned,  most  people  can  identify 
friends  or  friends  of  friends  among 
them.  The  few  who  don't  share  in  the 
grief  feel  the  fear. 

The  suicide  bombers  who  hit,  among 
others,  two  batches  of  bus  passengers  in 
Jerusalem  and  another  group  of  pedestri- 
ans including  children  in  Purim  costumes 
in  Tel  Aviv  earlier  this  year  killed  58  in- 
nocent people— and  also  revived  Ne- 
tanyahu's flagging  hopes.  "They're  giv- 
ing Bibi  the  election,"  one  of  his  friends 
told  me  joylessly  as  the  death  toll 
mounted.  Instantaneously  press  predic- 
tions of  Netanyahu's  political  demise 
were  replaced  by  scenes  of  twisted  bus 
hulks,  wailing  families,  and  the  bearded 
Orthodox  Jews  of  the  burial  societies  re- 
trieving bits  of  human  flesh  from  trees 
with  tweezers.  Netanyahu,  who  has  been 
faulted  in  the  past  for  exploiting  terror- 
ist incidents  for  political  gain,  general- 
ly maintained  a  statesmanlike  silence. 
Good  taste  was  now  good  politics. 

The  upcoming  election  will  be  a  refer- 
endum on  the  peace  process,  which  Ne- 
tanyahu has  dismissed  as  "public  celebra- 


which  enveloped  Netanyahu  in    1993. 

Delving  deeply  into  Netanyahu's  per- 
sonality is  not  an  easy  task.  Even  Mi- 
chael Stoltz,  one  of  his  spokesmen,  con- 
ceded that  he  has  few  close  friends,  and 
that  "Bibi  is  a  closed  book  when  it  comes 
to  anything  personal."  (Of  the  Netanyahu 
family,  Stoltz  added,  "They're  all  ...  I 
don't  want  to  use  the  word  'touchy,'  but 
they're  careful  about  discussing  them- 
selves") Those  friends  there  are  describe 
a  lonely  figure  poised  awkwardly 
throughout  much  of  his  life  between  Is- 
raeli and  American  cultures;  someone 
who  has  pushed  himself  relentlessly, 
learning  50  new  English  words  each 
week  during  summer  vacations  and  often 
reading  three  books  concurrently  (his  col- 
leagues didn't  like  setting  foot  in  the 
men's  room  after  he  had  used  it  because 
he  was  too  engrossed  in  his  reading  to 
take  proper  aim);  someone  who,  with  his 
intellect,  experience,  energy,  education, 
courage,  and  dedication  to  his  country, 
would  seem  uniquely  suited  to  lead  Is- 
rael, were  it  not  for  what  many  see  as  his 
arrogance,  his  ruthlessness,  and  his  insin- 
cerity—the hole  in  his  soul.  While  they 
know  him  best,  his  closest  friends  are  just 
as  unsure  about  Bibi  Netanyahu  as  every- 
one else— maybe  more  so. 

Kennedy  comparisons  may  be  hack- 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


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Gets  Tough, 

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neyed,  but  in  the  case  of  the  Netanyahu 
family  they  are  simply  too  tempting  to  re- 
sist. Like  the  Kennedys,  the  Netanyahus 
are  isolated,  smug,  tightly  knit,  and  a  bit 
paranoid.  Like  them,  too,  they  had  lofty 
dreams  for  their  firstborn  son,  and  when 
Yoni,  like  young  Joe  Kennedy  Jr.,  fell  in 
combat,  all  hopes  were  placed  on  his 
younger,  handsome  sibling.  And  like  the 
Kennedys,  the  driving  force  in  the  family 
was  a  father  convinced  that  he  had  never 
been  sufficiently  recognized  or  appreciated. 
Before  Random  House  published  his 
magisterial  study  of  the  Spanish  Inquisi- 
tion last  year,  Benzion  Netanyahu,  now 
86  years  old,  spent  much  of  his  academ- 
ic career  in  obscure  exile  from  the  coun- 
try he  had  fought  to  create— the  price,  he 
is  said  to  believe,  he  paid  for  his  fervent 


gan  referring  to  "Ted  Netanyahu"  and 
"Bibi  Koppel."  "He  gives  the  great  ap- 
pearance of  bluntness  and  candor."  Ted 
Koppel  said.  "He  applies  to  diplomacy 
the  principle  that  George  Burns  applied 
to  comedy:  'Sincerity  is  the  secret  of  great 
comedy;  if  you  can  fake  that,  you've  got 
it  made.'"  According  to  his  principal 
press  spokesman,  Shai  Bazak,  when 
asked  by  one  pollster  to  name  their  Unit- 
ed Nations  ambassador,  more  Ameri- 
cans said  "Benjamin  Netanyahu"  than 
whoever  it  was.  Strolling  triumphantly 
on  the  streets  of  Manhattan  between  in- 
terviews at  Tlie  New  York  Times  and 
CBS,  he  attracted  throngs  of  groupies. 
Bibi  became  the  Tom  Jones  of  the  Jew- 
ish charity  circuit,  with  adoring  women 


he  is  head  and  shoulders  above  them,  in 
worldview,  in  intellectual  concepts,  in  the 
ability  to  formulate  thoughts,  to  grasp 
new  ideas,"  said  David  Bar-Illan,  execu- 
tive editor  of  Tlie  Jerusalem  Post  and  a 
friend.  But  Netanyahu,  he  admitted,  had 
grown  "addicted"  to  oversimplification. 
"Bibi  sounds  on  TV  like  a  parody  of  an 
American  politician,"  he  said. 

"It  looks  as  if  since  he  moved  to  Is- 
rael that  he  is  less  deep  and  has  less 
vision,  though  when  you  sit  and  talk 
with  him  you  find  it's  all  there,"  said 
Natan  Sharansky,  who  has  praised  Ne- 
tanyahu for  anticipating  and  facili- 
tating the  mass  emigration  of  Soviet 
Jews  to  Israel  in  the  past  decade. 


right-wing  brand  of  Zionism.  Long  un- 
heeded outside  his  home,  he  is  worshiped 
within  it.  Bibi  Netanyahu  speaks  of  him 
not  only  as  a  wise  man  but  as  a  seer  who 
predicted  nearly  30  years  ago  that  spine- 
less Israeli  politicians  would  one  day  re- 
linquish the  land  that  their  soldiers  had 
just  died  to  conquer  in  the  Six-Day  War. 
Though  Bibi  Netanyahu  has  pledged  that 
once  he  is  elected  he  will  bring  some  ci- 
vility to  Israel's  corrosive  politics,  he  es- 
sentially shares  his  father's  belief  that 
their  liberal  opponents  are  little  more 
than  the  weaklings  and  wimps  that  Zion- 
ism was  designed  to  combat. 

"My  father  said  to  me  something  I  re- 
member now,"  Bibi  recalled.  "He  said, 
'Within  25  years  at  most,  they'll  give  back 
everything-  including  Jerusalem." "  His  fa- 
ther, Netanyahu  explained,  understood 
the  bedrock  beliefs  of  the  timid  souls  who 
ran  Israel:  that,  as  Netanyahu  put  it,  "this 
is  not  our  country,  that  we  have  no  rights 
in  here,  that  we're  basically  refugees  who 
have  taken  someone  else's  land  and  are 
here  by  the  grace  of  their  generosity." 

"That  is  certainly  not  my  view,"  Ne- 
tanyahu stressed. 

To  many  American  Jews,  understanding 
and  liking  their  more  blunt  and  blus- 
tery Israeli  cousins  is  a  bit  of  a  strain. 
But  during  his  days  in  Washington  and 
New  York.  Bibi  was  easy.  The  pashas  of 
the  American  media— Abe  Rosenthal,  Lar- 
ry King,  William  Safire,  Charlie  Rose— be- 
came his  friends  and  vehicles.  So  often 
did  he  appear  on  Nightline  that  wags  be- 


all  but  throwing  their  house  keys  at  him. 

"Women  like  him.  They  tell  me  they 
like  him,"  said  Larry  King.  "Every 
time  he's  on,  the  next  day  people  come 
over  and  say,  'Boy,  would  I  like  to 
meet  him.  Is  he  married?'" 

Bibi's  Americanized  ways  helped  him 
bypass  such  grizzled  Likud  Party  veter- 
ans as  Ariel  Sharon  and  David  Levy, 
and  outmaneuver  the  so-called  Likud 
princes— Beni  Begin,  Dan  Meridor,  and 
Ehud  Olmert— to  take  over  the  party  in 
1993.  At  the  same  time,  they  have  given 
rise  to  stereotypes  which,  while  demon- 
strably untrue,  have  proved  difficult  to 
shake.  Despite  his  impeccable  right- 
wing  pedigree,  critics  insist  that  he  has 
no  convictions  of  his  own,  that  he  is 
purely  the  product  of  his  pollsters.  As 
Dedi  Zucker,  a  member  of  the  left-wing 
Meretz  Party,  put  it,  he  is  a  creature  out 
of  Madame  Tussaud's.  And  although  he 
has  written  two  serious  books,  reads 
Kant  for  pleasure,  and  can  quote 
Churchill,  he  is  routinely  described  as 
"shallow"— as  Clyde  Haberman  once 
wrote  in  The  New  York  Times,  he  is  "ac- 
cused by  many  in  his  own  party  of  be- 
ing, deep  down,  rather  superficial." 

Honest  Israeli  journalists,  Yediot  Aha- 
ronot  s  Shimon  Shifter  among  them,  con- 
cede that  Netanyahu's  charges  of  left- 
wing  bias  in  the  press  are  justified.  But 
even  a  number  of  Netanyahu's  friends  ad- 
mit that  he  has  brought  some  of  his  prob- 
lems upon  himself,  by  speaking  in  sound 
bites  and  acting  as  if  Israelis  were  as  easy 
to  manipulate  as  Americans.  "Compared 
to  any— repeat,  any— politician  in  Israel, 


Netanyahu's  treatment  in  the  Ameri- 
can press  has  been  gentle,  as  Ted  Koppel 
has  noted,  because  his  reassuringly  id- 
iomatic English  makes  him  sound  much 
more  reasonable  than  his  policies  really 
are.  When  he  visited  members  of  the 
New  York  Times  editorial  board,  he  was 
greeted  like  a  long-lost  son.  "On  a  scale 
of  1  to  10  as  a  great  guest."  said  Larry 
King,  "he  is  an  8.  If  he  had  a  sense  of 
humor,  he'd  be  a  10."  But  in  Israel  he 
has  found  it  rough  going.  The  press  there 
views  him  as  fundamentally  artificial,  a 
man  whose  very  spontaneity  is  planned. 
The  choreography  goes  beyond  Netan- 
yahu's most  un-Israeli  penchants  for  in- 
sisting on  reshooting  sound  bites  he  does 
not  like  and  dictating  the  most  flattering 
camera  angles.  One  prominent  Israeli 
television  reporter,  Gadi  Sukenik,  said 
Bibi  "blinks  too  much,"  nods  his  head  to 
look  sincere,  and  "talks  like  someone 
who  knows  he's  handsome."  Particularly 
cloying  to  him  and  others  are  Netan- 
yahu's incessant  references  to  his  two 
young  sons— including  three  in  one  re- 
cent 20 -minute  interview— a  ham-fisted 
attempt,  they  believe,  to  play  the  family 
man  after  his  highly  publicized  infidelity. 
Invariably  omitted  is  any  mention  of  his 
18-year-old  daughter  from  two  marriages 
ago.  Nahum  Barnea,  a  politically  potent 
columnist  for  Israel's  largest  newspaper, 
Yediot  Aharonot,  has  said,  "There's  some- 
thing .  .  .  unpleasant  about  him  which 
probably  has  nothing  to  do  with  his  qual- 
ity as  a  leader.  .  .  .  Most  politicians  are 
insincere  but  don't  express  their  feelings. 
He  is  very  fast  to  express  feelings,  and 


50 


VANITY  FAIR/JUNE  1996 


GUESS 

WATCHES 


10  Year  Limited  Warranty 


Macy's 


then  you  have  difficulty  believing  him." 
This  visceral  feeling  is  not  limited  to 
journalists  and  intellectuals.  In  Israel, 
cabbies  are  representative  of  Netanyahu's 
core  constituency.  And,  according  to  Lily 
Galili  of  Ha'aretz,  they  invariably  say  the 
same  thing  about  him:  /  vote  for  Likud, 
but  Bihi  is  .  .  .  they  begin,  at  which  point 
they  take  their  hands  off  the  wheel,  lift 
them  skyward,  and  wiggle  their  fingers, 
as  if  searching  for  a  word  *~ 
that  means  "not  quite  real."  pill 
And  cheap:  one  cabbie  not- 
ed an  expose  in  Kol  Ha'ir, 
an  irreverent  weekly,  in 
which  Netanyahu  was  de- 
scribed as  angling  for  dis- 
counts on  everything  from 
his  wife's  Toyota  to  the  re- 
ception following  his  son's 
circumcision  ceremony. 

To  American  journalists 
with   the  right   Nielsen 
ratings,  Netanyahu  is 
notoriously  available. 

But    with    anyone    un- 
known, especially  someone 


gjft  •  '*T 


Right:  Shimon  Peres  and 
President  Ezer  Weizman  in  1996 
at  a  Jerusalem  memorial 
service  for  Rabin.  Below:  the 
first  of  five  terrorist  attacks  last 
winter — a  commuter  bus  was 
blown  up.  As  the  bombs  started 
exploding,  Netanyahu's 
political  fortunes  improved. 


jflgg»Miji55  fed 


<   v^; '  J2* 


There  is  in  Netanya- 
hu's public  pronounce- 
ments these  days  a 
shiny  new  veneer  of 
reasonableness.  He 
speaks  of  bringing  Is- 
raelis a  "safe"  peace, 
and  to  anyone  who 
will  listen,  he  ticks 
off  the  precedents  of 
Nixon  and  the  Chi- 
nese, Reagan  and  the 
Russians,  Begin  and 
the  Egyptians,  all  in- 
stances where  ostensible 
hard-liners  buried  hatchets. 

But  one  can't  help  but 
feel,  particularly  when 
Netanyahu  describes  his 
own  peace  plan— involving 
a  modified  self-governing 
arrangement  for  Palestinian 
enclaves  well  short  of  state- 
hood, and  allowing  for  con- 
tinued Israeli  settlement  of 
the  West   Bank— that  these 


hatred  that  preceded  the  murder.  Pundits  began  speaking  of  him  as  an  Israeli  Dukakis. 


working  on  a  longer  and  more  personal 
profile,  he  is  skittish.  Only  after  making 
me  grovel  and  provide  him  with  refer- 
ences was  I  granted  a  few  audiences. 
During  that  time,  which  spanned  the 
wave  of  last  winter's  terrorist  attacks, 
his  spirits  evolved  from  defiant  to  exas- 
perated to  almost  cocky;  whether  this 
reflected  a  change  in  tactics  or  his  im- 
proving electoral  fortunes  I  could  not 
tell.  By  the  end  he  was  laughingly  pre- 
dicting he  would  be  a  "kinder,  gentler" 
prime  minister  than  he'd  been  an  oppo- 
sition leader,  taking  care  when  asked  to 
repeat  the  line  several  times  always  to 
laugh  in  precisely  the  same  spot. 

Our  first  session,  which  took  place  in 
a  cavernous  room  at  the  King  David 
Hotel  in  Jerusalem,  was  brief,  and 
made  shorter  still  by  several  calls  on 
his  cellular  phone.  (Netanyahu  favors 
the  polite  "Hello"  of  Americans  to  the 
abrasive,  indignant  "/l/j-lo!"  of  native 
Israelis.)  Sometimes  forcing  a  voice- 
activated  tape  recorder  to  work  over- 
time, Netanyahu  reiterated  that  nothing 
he  had  done  prior  to  Rabin's  assassina- 
tion, including  attending  highly  incen- 
diary rallies  against  the  peace  process, 
required  an  apology.  He  also  lamented 


to  me  that  he  liked  Rabin  personally, 
although  this  rang  less  true  afterward, 
when  I  learned  that  he  had  previously 
lamented  to  a  group  of  visiting  Ameri- 
can Jews  that  the  slain  prime  minister 
was  proving  "harder  to  beat  dead  than 
alive."  Responding  to  charges  of  super- 
ficiality, he  poked  a  straw  into  the 
wedge  of  lemon  floating  on  the  surface 
of  his  soda  water  to  suggest  that  my 
questions  themselves  were  superficial. 
The  real  story  was  deeper  down,  he 
said,  dipping  the  straw  to  the  bottom  of 
the  glass.  Submerged  somewhere  down 
there  were  the  interlocking  circles 
of  left-wing  journalists  and  right-wing 
rivals  who  together  had  cooked  up 
the  conventional  wisdom  (he  calls  it 
"C.W.")  that  he  is  shallow  and  unprin- 
cipled. Their  campaign  had  hurt  him  in 
the  short  run,  he  said,  but  it  had  also 
bestowed  upon  him  the  greatest  advan- 
tage a  politician  can  have:  to  be  un- 
derestimated. Netanyahu  spoke  with 
a  sly,  satisfied  smile,  the  smile  of  some- 
one who  knows  he  is  important  enough 
to  conspire  against,  clever  enough  to 
see  through  that  conspiracy,  and  nim- 
ble enough  once  again  to  stay  a  step 
ahead  of  the  conspirators. 


words  are  his  stabs  at  statesmanship, 
bones  thrown  to  battle-weary  swing  vot- 
ers rather  than  statements  of  real  convic- 
tion. One  suspects  that  deep  down  he 
really  believes  what  the  right-wing  Revi- 
sionist Zionist  Vladimir  Jabotinsky,  whom 
his  father  once  worked  under  and  still 
reveres,  wrote  in  his  famous  1923  article 
"The  Iron  Wall":  "As  long  as  the  Arabs 
feel  that  there  is  the  least  hope  of  getting 
rid  of  us,  they  will  refuse  to  give  up  this 
hope  in  return  for  either  kind  words  or 
for  bread  and  butter,  because  they  are 
not  a  rabble,  but  a  living  people.  .  .  .  Not 
till  then  will  they  drop  their  extremist 
leaders  whose  watchword  is  'Never.'" 

One  hears  echoes  of  Jabotinsky  in  Ne- 
tanyahu's explanations  of  why,  under  his 
leadership,  the  peace  process  will  contin- 
ue, terrorism  will  not  increase,  and  the 
intifada  (the  uprising  of  Palestinians  in 
the  occupied  territories)  will  not  resume. 
"The  Palestinian  Arabs  are  supremely  re- 
alistic." he  said.  "They  don't  knock  their 
heads  against  a  stone  wall." 

One  heard  more  on  a  blustery  after- 
noon in  early  March  on  the  rocky  slopes 
of  the  Golan  Heights,  where  he  fought 
during  the  1973  Yom  Kippur  War.  With 
the   snows   of  Mount    Hermon   in   the 


52 


VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


„  ONLY 
THE  FINEST 

RUMS 

COME 

FROM 
PUERTO  RICO 

Aging  has  given  RONRICO  and  the  other  quality  rums  from  Puerto  Rico 

a  smoothness,  whether  straight  or  mixed,  that  has  made  them  preferred  over  all  others. 

And  only  in  Puerto  Rico,  with  its  heritage  of  fine  rums,  is  aging  guaranteed  by  law. 


PRICO  HONRJC 


RUMS  OF  PUERTO  RICO  M  ONLY  THE  FINEST 


1 


background  and  cold  raindrops  falling, 
he  spoke  to  the  adoring  children  of  Be- 
tar,  the  Jewish  youth  movement  Jabotin- 
sky  founded  in  Eastern  Europe  when 
Eastern  Europe  still  had  Jewish  youth. 
"We're  standing  here,  and  behind  me  is 
the  Hermon,"  he  said  to  hearty  applause 
and  occasional  cries  of  "Bibi!  Bibi!"  "To 
us,  to  us,  belongs  the  Hermon!  To  us,  to 
us,  belongs  the  Golan  Heights!  To  us,  to 
us,  the  Jordan  Valley!  To  us,  to  us, 
above  all,  belongs  Jerusalem— all  of  it! 
You  can't  talk  about  peace  without  talk- 
ing about  these  things." 

Netanyahu's  paternal  grandfather.  Rab- 
bi Nathan  Mileikowsky,  was  born  in 
Lithuania  and  ran  a  Jewish 
school  in  Warsaw.  A  passionate 
Zionist  and  legendary  orator, 
he  traveled  throughout  Europe, 
Siberia,  and  the  United  States 
urging  Jews  to  return  to  Pales- 
tine. It  was  a  voyage  he  himself 
was  to  make  in  1920,  going 
ashore  near  the  fledgling  city  of 
Tel  Aviv  in  a  rowboat  with  his 
wife  and  young  family.  They  had 
resolved  to  speak  only  Hebrew, 
and  took  the  name  Netanyahu— 
which  means  "given  by  God." 

Mileikowsky  had  nine  chil- 
dren, eight  of  them  boys,  the 
eldest  of  whom  was  Bibi's  fa- 


the  Jews  to  have  a  land  of  their  own  they 
would  be  less  likely  to  agitate  elsewhere. 
In  1944,  Benzion  married  Cela  Segal, 
the  youngest  of  seven  children  of  a 
Lithuanian  businessman  who  had  moved 
to  Palestine  after  several  years  in  the 
United  States.  She  was  extraordinarily 
accomplished,  one  of  the  few  women  to 
enroll  in  Jerusalem's  Hebrew  University 
in  the  1930s;  she  then  spent  five  years  in 
London  reading  for  the  bar.  But  apart 

Bibi  and  Yoni  Netanyahu  in  Eilat,  Israel,  circa 
1970.  Killed  in  the  1976  raid  on  Entebbe, 
Yoni  is  a  national  hero,  but  some  say  his 
family  has  tried  too  hard  to  mythologize  him. 


was,  he  was  convinced,  because  of  his 
Revisionist  politics,  and  it  fed  his  feel- 
ings of  resentment.  (Even  today  Benzion 
refuses  to  speak  to  reporters,  giving  as  a 
reason  "Much  unfairness  has  been  done 
to  me  in  the  past.  I'm  used  to  it.") 

So  for  the  next  14  years  Benzion  con- 
tinued his  work  on  the  persecution  of 
conversos— Jews  who  converted  to  Chris- 
tianity—during the  Spanish  Inquisition, 
and  edited  two  projects:  the  Encyclopedia 
Hebraica  and  The  World  History  of  the 
Jewish  People.  Bibi  Netanyahu  insists, 
implausibly  in  the  eyes  of  childhood 
friends,  that  his  father  suddenly  ceased 
thinking,  or  even  talking,  about  politics. 
"I  don't  remember  one  conversation  in 
my  entire  youth  ever  talking 
about  politics,"  he  says. 

In  1962,  Benzion  Netanyahu 
exiled  himself  and  his  family 
from  Israel  altogether,  accept- 
ing a  full-time  teaching  position 
at  Dropsie  College.  He  re- 
mained there  for  six  years,  then 
moved  briefly  to  the  University 
of  Denver  before  joining  the 
Department  of  Semitic  Lan- 
guages and  Literature  at  Cor- 
nell in  1971.  Throughout  this 
period,  he  continued  to  labor 
indefatigably  on  his  life's  work, 
The  Origins  of  the  Inquisition  in 


terrorism  that  was  prescient  to  some,  opportunistic  and  monomaniacal  to  others. 


ther.  Benzion  Netanyahu  trained  as  a 
historian,  but  after  local  Arabs  killed 
more  than  100  Jews  in  a  series  ■  of 
pogroms  in  1929,  he  enlisted  in  the  Revi- 
sionist Zionist  movement  of  Jabotinsky. 
(Revisionists  viewed  such  mainstream 
Zionists  as  Chaim  Weizmann  and  David 
Ben-Gurion  as  compromisers  and  nai'fs, 
blind  not  just  to  the  implacable  hatred  of 
the  Arabs  but  also  to  the  catastrophe 
awaiting  European  Jewry,  and  they 
sought  the  immediate  creation  of  a  Jew- 
ish state  on  both  sides  of  the  Jordan 
River.)  In  the  mid-1930s  Benzion  edited 
Ha-Yarden,  the  hard-line  Zionist  daily 
newspaper.  In  March  1940  he  accom- 
panied Jabotinsky  to  New  York  and 
was  a  pallbearer  at  his  funeral  five 
months  later.  After  the  war  he  lobbied 
Bernard  Baruch,  Dean  Acheson,  and 
Dwight  Eisenhower  to  support  the  cre- 
ation of  a  Jewish  state.  Netanyahu  im- 
pressed the  general  by  arguing  that  were 


from  raising  her  sons,  her  career  con- 
sisted of  serving  her  husband's  scholarly 
needs,  insulating  him  from  distractions, 
and  typing  and  retyping  his  manu- 
scripts. Yoni  was  born  in  New  York 
City  in  1946.  Three  years  later,  after 
they  had  returned  to  Israel,  they  had 
two  more  sons:  Benjamin,  nicknamed 
"Bibi,"  in  1949,  and  Iddo,  in  1952. 

The  Israel  to  which  the  Netanyahus 
returned  in  1948  was  in  some  ways  hos- 
tile territory  to  them.  Its  government 
was  in  the  hands  of  Ben-Gurion.  The 
right-wing  opposition  belonged  to  Mena- 
chem  Begin,  who  built  his  party  around 
ha-mishpacha  ha-lohamet— the  "fighting 
family"  of  the  Jewish  underground— 
rather  than  around  theoreticians  who 
had  spent  the  War  of  Independence  sit- 
ting on  the  sidelines.  Netanyahu,  who 
had  earned  his  doctorate  at  Philadel- 
phia's Dropsie  College  after  World  War 
II,  hoped  to  teach  at  Hebrew  University, 
but  could  not  secure  a  post  there.  It 


Fifteenth  Century  Spain.  The  book,  for 
which  Random  House  paid  $200,000,  ap- 
peared to  critical  acclaim  last  fall— all 
1,384  pages  of  it.  Scholars  say  the  book 
is  remarkable  not  just  for  its  originality 
and  erudition  but  also  for  its  premise: 
that  no  matter  what  Jews  do,  including 
becoming  good  Christians,  they  will  be 
persecuted  and  killed.  It  is  remarkable, 
too,  some  say,  for  ignoring  virtually 
everything  written  by  anyone  else  on  the 
subject  for  the  last  30  years. 

Those  who  know  Benzion  Netanyahu 
describe  him  as  brilliant,  powerful,  vig- 
orous, harsh,  judgmental,  vain,  reclu- 
sive, meticulous,  undiplomatic,  and  un- 
compromising. "A  force  of  nature"  is 
how  Jason  Epstein,  his  editor  at  Ran- 
dom House,  puts  it.  He  is  also  de- 
scribed as  contemptuous  of  just  about 
everyone  else,  including  professional  col- 
leagues, politicians  of  all  stripes,  Arabs, 
Sephardim,  and  Orthodox  Jews.  "Every- 
one was  'stupid'  (Continued  on  page  63) 


54 


VANITY  FAIR/JUNE  1996 


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(Continued from  page  54)  or  'ignorant,'" 
said  someone  who  knew  him  in  the 
United  States.  "  'Idiots!'  was  a  word  he 
used  frequently." 

Always  in  the  Netanyahu  family  there 
was  pressure  to  produce.  "All  three  sons 
were  never  childish,"  one  of  Netan- 
yahu's childhood  friends  said.  "There 
was  always  this  feeling  that  the  burden 
of  the  world  was  on  their  shoulders,  that 
they  had  to  prove  themselves  physically 
and  intellectually."  Before  giving  any 
major  speeches  at  the  United  Nations, 
Bibi  would  first  read  them  over  the 
phone  to  Benzion,  and  even  now. 
friends  say,  he  does  little  without  con- 
sulting him.  One  friend  recalled  with 
amazement  how  he  tried  to  see  Bibi  not 
long  ago  and  Benzion  all  but  said  his 
40-odd-year-old  son  could  not  come 
out  and  play— he  was  too  busy  writing  a 
speech.  At  his  own  son's  recent  birthday 
party  at  the  King  David  Hotel  in  Jeru- 


Indeed,  Benzion  almost  passed  up  Yoni's 
wedding  because  he  was  too  busy  review- 
ing 15th-century  documents  in  Spain. 

Bibi  Netanyahu  cried  when,  at  age  14, 
he  was  suddenly  forced  to  leave  Israel 
for  an  alien  place  called  Pennsylvania. 
But  he  prospered  at  Cheltenham  High 
School  in  Wyncote,  a  suburb  of  Philadel- 
phia. Contemporaries  remember  him  as 
outspoken,  well  versed  in  current  events, 
very  good  at  soccer,  and  critical  of  the 
self-indulgent  softness  of  their  lives.  His 
teachers  remember  his  great  intelligence, 
his  leadership  ability,  his  stubbornness. 

He  says  that  while  he  appreciated 
parts  of  American  culture,  particularly 
its  open-mindedness,  he  disliked  its  "root- 
lessness"  and  "lack  of  a  sense  of  belong- 
ing," especially  among  Jews  there.  Sum- 
mers, he  made  a  beeline  for  Israel, 
where  he  would  hang  around  with  old 


a  third  operation,  on  the  Suez  Canal, 
only  the  efforts  of  two  fellow  soldiers 
saved  him  twice  from  drowning  under 
the  weight  of  his  gear. 

In  the  army,  too,  comrades  noticed 
his  extraordinary  devotion  to  his  fami- 
ly. Even  before  Yoni  left  Harvard  to 
join  Bibi's  unit,  his  baby  brother  was 
talking  him  up.  To  one  soldier  who 
asked  Bibi  to  describe  Yoni,  the  memo- 
ry is  still  vivid  25  years  later.  "He  gave 
me  a  feeling  it  was  a  stupid  question," 
the  man  recalled.  "It  was  a  very  snob- 
bish smile.  They  were  Netanyahus. 
'We're  Netanyahus,  something  special. 
Don't  worry  and  don't  ask.'" 

Despite  his  ambivalence  about  the 
United  States,  in  1972,  Netanyahu  opted 
for  college  at  M.I.T.,  where  he  majored  in 
architecture,  then  took  a  master's  in  busi- 
ness administration.  Though  his  course 


salem— a  bizarre  event,  according  to 
those  in  attendance,  where  politicians 
outnumbered  four-year-olds— Bibi  traipsed 
around  brandishing  his  father's  newly 
published  book. 

But  the  quest  for  his  father's  ap- 
proval, say  people  who  know  them  both, 
was  probably  quixotic.  "Bibi  takes  ap- 
propriate positions,  but  he  doesn't  have 
anything  like  the  old  man's  profundity 
and  strength,  and  I'm  sure  the  father 
knows  that,"  said  one  friend. 

"A  mutual-admiration  society"  was 
how  someone  who  knew  the  family 
characterized  it.  "If  there's  someone 
who  doesn't  say  nice  things  about  him," 
Bibi's  mother  said  of  her  son  in  a  terse 
phone  interview,  "that  means  they  don't 
know  him." 

"Bibi  grew  up  in  that  atmosphere: 
'We  are  right,  they  are  completely 
wrong,'"  a  childhood  friend  recalled. 

Everything— friends,  outside  interests, 
and  children— took  a  backseat  to  the 
father's  work.  Israelis,  accustomed  to 
staying  close  to  home  when  their  chil- 
dren are  in  the  military,  are  flabber- 
gasted to  learn  that  the  Netanyahus 
remained  abroad  when  all  three  of  their 
sons  served  simultaneously  in  one  of 
the  Israeli  Army's  most  dangerous 
units.  When  Bibi  was  wounded  during 
one  mission,  his  parents  did  not  return 
to  Israel  to  visit  him  in  the  hospital. 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


friends.  But  America  had  gotten  to  him 
more  than  he  might  have  realized,  and 
not  just  by  making  him  an  exponent  of 
the  Vietnam  War  and  the  free-market 
economics  of  Milton  Friedman.  A  politi- 
cal misfit  when  he  left  Israel,  he  was  a 
cultural  misfit  when,  in  1967,  he  returned 
for  army  duty.  He  did  not  know  the  pop- 
ular songs,  read  books  in  English  rather 
than  Hebrew,  and  seemed  unable  to  un- 
derstand the  customs  of  a  country  built 
on  an  ideal  of  interdependence;  one  col- 
league recalled  how  Bibi  objected  when, 
during  a  meal,  he  reached  to  borrow 
Bibi's  spoon.  "He  was  a  lonely  soldier," 
this  man  related.  "He  didn't  have  what 
everyone  else  had:  friends,  a  landscape,  a 
city,  a  country,  a  language." 

That  same  loneliness,  his  colleagues 
feel,  drove  him  to  join  the  Sayeret  Mat- 
cal,  the  army's  elite  border-reconnais- 
sance unit,  and  to  become  a  super- 
achieving  soldier.  While  some  feel  that 
he  subsequently  made  too  much  of  his 
military  duty  (in  Israel,  captains  are  no 
big  deal),  he  was  clearly  brave,  conscien- 
tious, and  generous,  someone  who  quite 
literally— when  it  came  to  carrying  fel- 
low soldiers  on  stretchers— shouldered 
his  share  of  the  load  and  more.  As  well 
as  getting  shot  in  the  arm  while  rescuing 
hostages  from  a  hijacked  Sabena  airliner 
in  1972,  he  participated  in  a  1968  night 
raid  on  Beirut  International  Airport,  in 
which  he  helped  blow  up  13  aircraft.  In 


load  was  twice  as  heavy  as  most  of  his 
classmates',  he  found  the  time  to  combat 
what  he  thought  was  the  pervasive  anti- 
Israeli  feeling  on  campus.  He  lectured  ex- 
tensively and  persuasively,  sometimes  re- 
hearsing in  front  of  a  mirror  to  prepare. 

It  was  also  while  in  Massachusetts— 
where  Bibi  simplified  his  name  for  Ameri- 
cans to  Ben  Nitay— that  he  learned,  on 
July  4,  1976,  of  his  30-year-old  brother's 
death.  His  parents  were  not  to  find  out 
until  Netanyahu  and  his  first  wife,  an  Is- 
raeli woman  called  Micky,  drove  to  Itha- 
ca to  tell  them.  When  Bibi  and  Micky  ar- 
rived, Cela  Netanyahu  ran  out  the  door  to 
greet  them,  only  to  freeze  halfway.  "He's 
dead,  isn't  he?"  she  suddenly  asked. 

Those  who  knew  them  both  say  that 
Yoni  and  Bibi  Netanyahu  were  not  at  all 
alike:  the  elder  brother  was  more  intro- 
spective, more  complex,  more  philo- 
sophical, more  brooding,  more  roman- 
tic, more  loving,  more  sincere,  equally 
devoted  to  his  father  but  more  inde- 
pendent of  him.  Just  as  no  one  ever  de- 
scribes the  young  Bibi  Netanyahu  as  "in- 
nocent" or  "naive,"  no  one  has  ever  said 
Yoni  was  "opportunistic"  or  "cunning." 
Nevertheless,  the  brothers  were  extreme- 
ly close.  Yoni's  letters  to  Bibi  are  filled 
with  love  and  encouragement.  "You're 
the  only  true  friend  I  ever  had,"  he 
wrote  Bibi  in  1967.  "1  think  I  love  him 
more  than  anyone  else  in  the  world," 
Yoni  had  written  three  years  earlier. 

Bibi  can  sound  like  a  human  jukc- 

63 


lilSllilil'lll'S 


box,  emitting  a  wide  range  of  canned 
sounds  depending  on  which  button  is 
pushed,  but  on  the  subject  of  his  older 
brother,  at  least,  he  sounds  utterly  gen- 
uine. One  veteran  American  reporter  in 
Israel  thinks  the  unarticulated  but  real 
reason  Netanyahu  has  said  he  would 
refuse  to  meet  with  Arafat  is  that  he 
holds  him  accountable  for  Yoni's 
death.  Asked  at  a  press  conference  in 
February  to  justify  his  position,  Ne- 
tanyahu refrained  from  his  usual  tor- 
rent of  well-lubricated,  honey-roasted 


younger  brothers  seeking  to  explain 
away  his  angst.  Pictures  showing  Yoni 
at  his  grittiest  were  favored;  letters 
showing  him  at  his  tenderest  were  not. 
The  family  reportedly  was  unhappy 
with  the  man  they  had  chosen  to  write 
the  biography,  apparently  because  it 
wasn't  sufficiently  adulatory.  To  this 
day  there  is  a  large  bust  of  Yoni  in  their 
home,  and  Benzion  dedicated  his  book 
"with  unrelieved  grief  to  his  memory. 
Others  who  participated  in  the  En- 


family  evidently  felt  that  that  made  him 
still  more  heroic,  did  such  distinctions 
really  matter?  But  many  were  outraged 
by  Iddo's  efforts  to  build  up  Yoni  by 
denigrating  others  in  the  operation. 

Two  weeks  before  his  brother's  death 
Bibi  had  begun  a  job  at  the  Boston  Con- 
sulting Group,  a  prestigious  corporate- 
strategy  operation,  where  he  worked  for, 
among  others,  Ira  Magaziner,  later 
President  Clinton's  health-care  guru.  But 


rhetoric.  "Well,  I  don't  want  to 
and  I  hope  I  never  have  to," 
he  simply  said.  The  position 
may  be  untenable  nowadays 
for  an  Israeli  prime  minister, 
but  it  is  oddly  principled. 

Of  all  of  Israel's  military  he- 
roes, few  have  come  to  occu- 
py as  lofty  a  pedestal  as  Yoni 
Netanyahu.  Partly  it  was  because 
he  was  a  handsome,  charismatic, 
and  exceptionally  gifted  young 
man,  the  sole  casualty  of  an  op- 
eration that  electrified  the  world. 
Partly  it  was  because  Israel's  leaders— 
among  them  then  defense  minister  Peres, 
who  delivered  a  eulogy  at  Yoni's  funeral- 
believed  the  country  needed  a  hero  after 
the  disastrous  Yom  Kippur  War.  And 
partly  it  was  because  the  Netanyahu 
family  labored— consciously,  unceasing- 
ly, and  in  some  ways  excessively— to 
make  Yoni  a  public  icon,  even  though 
he  was  at  bottom  a  modest  and  intense- 
ly private  person.  Shortly  after  Yoni's 
death,  Bibi  told  one  friend  that  his 
brother  could  now  be  turned  into  the 
kind  of  mythic  figure  Israel  needed. 
"This  country  does  not  know  what  it 
has  lost,"  Bibi  told  someone  at  that  fu- 
neral. "It  has  lost  the  next  Ben-Gurion." 
Quickly,  the  family  sought  to  arrange 
not  one  book  about  Yoni  but  three:  the 
collection  of  his  letters  that  Israeli  chil- 
dren now  read,  a  biography,  and  a  book 
of  tributes.  Among  the  authors  the  fam- 
ily discussed  for  the  biography  were 
James  Michener  and  Irwin  Shaw.  As 
good  as  Yoni's  Hebrew  was,  they  cor- 
rected and  polished  it  in  the  published 
letters.  His  final  letter,  filled  with  de- 
spair about  his  future,  was  included,  but 
only  with  a  long  afterword  by  his  two 

64 


Netanyahu  being  interviewed  in  Jerusalem 
by  CNN  correspondent  Linda  Scherzer  during 
the  1991  Persian  Gulf  War.  Minutes  before, 
citizens  were  advised  to  put  on  gas  masks. 


tebbe  operation  knew  that  Yoni's  role  in 
it,  as  well  as  his  military  record  and 
long-term  prospects  in  the  army,  was 
somewhat  overstated.  But  no  one  was 
much  inclined  to  quarrel;  Yoni  was  a 
bona  fide  hero.  Schools,  parks,  children, 
streets,  scholarships,  sporting  events, 
even  the  Entebbe  raid  itself  were  named 
after  him.  "Why  tell  children  that  Peter 
Pan  can't  fly?"  Moshe  Zonder,  a  re- 
porter for  the  Israeli  newspaper  Ma'ariv, 
was  once  asked  when  he  was  doing  a 
piece  about  Yoni's  career. 

But  that,  apparently,  was  not  enough 
for  the  Netanyahus.  In  1991  the  youngest 
Netanyahu  son,  Iddo,  revisited— at  the  be- 
hest of  Bibi  and  Benzion,  many  believe— 
his  brother's  story  in  a  book,  Yoni's  Last 
Battle.  People  dismissed  Iddo's  claim, 
which  seemed  unsupported  by  the  evi- 
dence, that  Yoni  was  shot  from  the  front 
by  a  German  terrorist  rather  than  from 
the  rear  by  a  Ugandan  soldier;  while  the 


in  the  wake  of  the  tragedy,  his 
heart  was  no  longer  in  his  work. 
He  took  a  leave  of  absence  to 
set  up  what  he  called  the  Jon- 
athan Institute,  a  vehicle  de- 
signed to  combat  international 
terrorism  and  to  prove,  as  Ne- 
tanyahu told  me,  that  terrorism 
is  "a  weapon  of  warfare  of 
states  and  therefore  can  be  com- 
bated with  relative  ease."  From 
the  papers  presented  there  Ne- 
tanyahu put  together  Terror- 
ism: How  the  West  Can  Win,  a 
book  that  Ronald  Reagan  re- 
portedly recommended  to  all 
senior  figures  in  his  administra- 
tion and  cited  as  an  influence  in  his  ille- 
gal funding  of  Nicaraguan  contras.  It 
was  the  start  of  Netanyahu's  20 -year  ob- 
session, which  was  prescient  to  some,  op- 
portunistic and  monomaniacal  to  others. 

In  1978  he  and  Micky,  then  a  doctoral 
candidate  at  Brandeis  University,  had 
a  daughter,  Noa.  But  shortly  there- 
after, according  to  a  family  friend, 
Micky  discovered  he  had  been  having 
an  affair  with  a  colleague  at  B.C.G,  an 
English-born  Harvard  Business  School 
graduate  named  Fleur  Cates,  and 
Micky  immediately  left  him.  Netanyahu 
soon  returned  to  Israel,  where  he  took 
a  job  with  Rim  Industries,  an  Israeli 
furniture  company.  Hungering  for 
something  more  meaningful,  he  found 
it  a  demoralizing  time.  In  May  1981, 
he  married  Fleur.  (Because  only  her  fa- 
ther was  a  Jew,  Fleur  was  technically 
not  Jewish  herself,  so  she  converted.) 
Associates  describe  Bibi  and  Fleur  as 
superficially  similar,  yet  quite  incongru- 
ous. "I  remember  thinking  what  an  odd 
pair  they  were,"  said  one.  "He  was  in- 
tense and  focused;  she  was  intense  but 
in  a  very  different,  very  fluttery  way." 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


jWMMMUIHimMIMUUffl 


■m—TwiuTTrni 


The  following  year  Netanyahu's  polit- 
ical career  took  off,  when  the  newly 
named  Israeli  ambassador  to  Washing- 
ton, Moshe  Arens,  an  old  family  friend 
of  the  Netanyahus',  asked  him  to  be  his 
deputy.  Two  hard-liners  softened  by  their 
American  accents,  Arens  and  Netanyahu 
were  peculiarly  well  suited  to  defend  the 
unpopular  Likud  line  in  the  United 
States  during  the  1982  Lebanese  war. 
Convinced  that  television  was  the  best 
way  to  influence  policy,  particularly  dur- 
ing a  presidency  in  which  the  president 
did  not  read  much,  Netanyahu  began 
honing  his  television  skills.  "I  covered  a 
lot  of  diplomats  in  Washington,  and  he 
was  one  of  the  best,"  said  Wolf  Blitzer, 
who  like  Netanyahu  himself  became  fa- 
mous via  CNN.  Ted  Koppel  said,  "I  re- 
member saying  to  Israeli  friends  that  I 
wouldn't  be  surprised  to  see  him  as 
prime  minister.  .  .  .  They  thought  it  was 
preposterous.  ...  He  was  seen  as  too 
much  of  a  self-promoter." 

Bibi  soon  landed  a  more  plum  assign- 
ment: Israel's  ambassador  to  the  United 
Nations.  Over  the  next  four  years,  he 
helped  expose  the  Nazi  past  of  the 
U.N.'s  own  former  secretary-general 
Kurt  Waldheim;  worked  to  repeal  the 
notorious  "Zionism  is  racism"  resolu- 
tion; sought  to  remedy  Israel's  diplomat- 
ic isolation,  particularly  from  African 
states;  and  pushed  for  permission  for 
Soviet  Jews  to  emigrate. 

Despite  his  natural  gifts,  he  was  still 
interested  in  self-improvement.  "One 
look  at  him,  I  knew  he  didn't  need  any 
fucking  help,"  said  David  Garth,  the 
prominent  political  consultant  to  whom 
Bibi  once  went  for  advice  and  access. 
Later,  Netanyahu  worked  with  Lilyan 
Wilder,  a  speech  consultant  in  New 
York,  often  calling  her  both  before  and 
after  his  Nightline  appearances. 

For  our  second  encounter,  for  which  I 
had  been  allotted  all  of  half  an  hour, 
we  moved  to  Netanyahu's  office  at  the 
Knesset.  On  the  bookshelf  along  the  win- 
dowsill  is  his  own  book  A  Place  Among 
the  Nations:  Israel  and  the  World  in  Ara- 
bic—No. 3  on  Jordan's  best-seller  list,  he 
has  said.  There  are  also  several  volumes 
of  Jabotinsky  in  Hebrew,  the  Hebrew  ver- 
sion of  Yoni's  letters,  Clinton:  Portrait  of 
Victory,  and  Safire's  New  Political  Diction- 
ary. "To  Bibi,  who  digs  this  lingo,"  the 
author's  inscription  reads.  Nearby  is  a 
Harvard  Business  School  mug  and  three 
pictures  of  his  current  wife  and  young 
sons.  There  are  none  of  his  daughter. 

Quickly,  things  turned  testy.  How  can 
he  shake  the  notion  that  beyond  a  sound 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


DMUk 

RwLd  oJMwto 


"La  esencia  de  la  divinidad"  by  Arnulfo  Mendoza,  Oaxaca,  Mexico 

Mexican  art  at  its  best. 

Like  fine  art,  a  fine  tequila  is  a  window  into  a  nation's  soul. 

Cuervo  1800  is  a  distinctive  expression  of  the  culture  and  history  of  Mexico. 

An  inspired  blend  of  the  finest  tequilas,  Cuervo  1800  has  been  refined 

and  enjoyed  for  over  200  years.  Its  smoothness  and  character  exemplify 

the  passionate  spirit  of  the  Mexican  people. 


For  more  information  on  Cuervo  1800  and  Mexican  art,  call  1-800-TEQUILA. 


65 


wsiiaicnes 


bite  he  had  nothing  to  say?  "I'm  not  go- 
ing to  even  try,"  he  replied  wearily.  "Peo- 
ple can  read  my  books,  they  can  hear  my 
statements,  they  can  listen  to  my  speech- 
es, they  can  make  up  their  own  minds." 
How  can  he  combat  the  idea  that  he  had 
sacrificed  his  humanity  to  his  ambition? 
"Well,  you  don't,"  he  snapped.  "I'm  ob- 
viously a  robot,  who's  programmed  and 
without  feelings,"  he  added,  appending 
a  hearty  guttural  laugh  that  is  Bibi-ese 
for  contempt.  "This  is  nonsense.  David, 
I'm  not  going  to  sit  here  lis- 
tening to  a  litany  of  .  .  .  you 
know  .  .  .  that's  just  too  .  .  . 
it's  not  serious,"  he  said.  With- 
in moments,  he  ordered  me  to 
turn  off  my  tape  recorder. 
The  interview  and  his  cooper- 
ation were  over. 


N 


etanyahu's  star  power  in 
New  York  quickly  be- 
came the  talk  of  Tel  Aviv. 
In  1986  the  political  pundit 
Chanan  Kristal  predicted  in 
one  newspaper  article  that  the 
1996  election  would  pit  Bibi 


Above:  Netanyahu 
with  third  wife  Sara 
and  son  Yair  in 
1996.  Colleagues  say 
she  has  isolated  him 
from  friends.  Left: 
consultant  Ruth  Bar, 
hired  by  Netanyahu 
to  improve  his  image, 
became  his  mistress. 


American  friends  called  her  an  "A-I-R- 
E-S-S,"  his  way  of  telling  me  not  just 
that  Sara  had  been  a  stewardess  when 
she  met  her  husband  but  that  she  was 
not  nearly  the  intellectual  equal  of  Bibi 
or  either  of  his  first  two  wives.  Sara  soon 
became  pregnant,  and  several  months 
after  that,  in  March  1991,  they  married. 
Before  too  long  Netanyahu  began  an 
affair  with  Ruth  Bar,  an  attractive, 
married  political  consultant  who  had 
been  hired,  ironically  enough,  to  gussy 
up  his  image. 

Sara,  who  is  nine  years  Bibi's  junior, 
learned  of  the  dalliance  in  January  1993, 
two  months  before  the  election  for  the 
Likud  leadership,  when  an  anonymous 
caller  told  her  that  her  husband  had  "a 
thing"  for  Bar.  Within  24  hours,  Netan- 
yahu was  on  prime  time  with  three  ex- 
traordinary announcements:  he  had  been 
unfaithful  to  his  wife;  someone  had  sup- 
posedly videotaped  him  "in  compromis- 
ing romantic  situations"  with  the  other 
woman;  and  his  opponents  were  threat- 
ening to  release  the  tape  unless  he 
dropped  out  of  the  race.  He  called  the 
threat  "the  worst  political  crime  in  Israeli 
history,  perhaps  in  the  history  of  democ- 


rently  foreign  minister.  In  1988,  Ne- 
tanyahu won  a  Knesset  seat,  and  when 
Arens  was  named  foreign  minister  in 
the  national-unity  government,  he  once 
more  made  Netanyahu  his  deputy. 
From  there,  Netanyahu  represented  Is- 
rael on  television  during  the  Gulf  War. 
wearing  a  gas  mask  on  CNN  during 
scud  attacks. 

Fleur  Netanyahu  accompanied  her 
husband  back  to  Israel,  but  the  strains  in 
their  marriage,  which  friends  character- 
ize as  highly  competitive  to  begin  with, 
grew  in  proportion  to  Bibi's  fame,  and  in 
1988  she  sued  for  divorce.  Some  say  the 
cause  was  not  infidelity,  as  was  widely 
suspected,  but  neglect,  physical  and  intel- 
lectual. (Some  also  speculate  that  Ne- 
tanyahu viewed  Fleur,  who  spoke  little 
Hebrew  and  looked  as  conspicuously  for- 
eign as  she  sounded,  as  a  local  liability.) 
Friends  regret  Fleur's  departure  because, 
they  say,  she  had  been  a  source  of  wise 
counsel  and  had  kept  his  ego  under  con- 
trol. Fleur  now  works  in  venture  capital 
for  Ronald  Lauder,  one  of  Netanyahu's 
supporters  in  New  York.  Though  she  re- 
cently remarried,  "Ms.  Fleur  Netanya- 


hu's office"  is  how  her  secretary  still  an- 
swers her  phone.  "Are  you  planning  to 
call  either  of  his  former  wives?"  Ne- 
tanyahu spokesman  Michael  Stoltz  asked 
apprehensively  when  I  began  this  story. 
In  fact,  neither  would  speak  with  me. 

Armed  with  money  from  abroad  and 
an  aura  of  success,  Netanyahu  seized 
control  of  the  Likud.  Any  problems  he 
encountered  were  once  more  of  his  own 
making,  and  they  concerned  women,  not 
politics.  Netanyahu's  friends  say  that, 
far  from  being  a  Lothario,  as  was  reput- 
ed, he  was  actually  quite  naive.  One 
New  York  friend  recalled  one  of  Bibi's 
encounters  there,  when,  as  he  put  it,  "a 
very  well-known  journalist  basically 
spread  her  legs  and  said,  'Let's  talk.'  He 
was  like  an  11-year-old  kid,"  the  friend 
said.  "It  was  over  his  head.  Sex  is  not  a 
big  part  of  Bibi's  life."  Friends  say  his 
two  divorces  are  testaments  to  his  prob- 
lems with  women.  So,  too,  they  say,  is 
his  third  marriage. 

Contemporaries  describe  his  current 
wife,  Sara  Netanyahu,  who  was  born  in 
a  small  town  near  Haifa  to  a  religious 
family,  as  quite  ordinary.  One  of  Bibi's 


racy,"  and  charged  that  his  old  Likud  ri- 
val David  Levy,  though  not  mentioned  by 
name,  in  cahoots  with  "criminals  who  use 
the  methods  of  the  Mafia,"  was  behind  it. 

Levy  indignantly  denied  the  charge. 
The  press  had  a  field  day;  "I'm  Bibi's 
lover"  stickers  began  popping  up  on  car 
bumpers.  The  police  could  find  no  vid- 
eo; Netanyahu  eventually  apologized  to 
Levy,  who,  gritting  his  teeth  and  angling 
for  a  Cabinet  post,  promised  his  support 
in  this  upcoming  election. 

Had  word  of  his  affair  just  filtered 
out,  Netanyahu  might  even  have  scored 
points  in  macho  Israel,  where  he  seems 
a  bit  of  a  straight  arrow.  Israelis  knew 
and  hadn't  much  cared  that  Ben-Guri- 
on,  Moshe  Dayan,  even  Golda  Meir 
had  extramarital  affairs.  But  the  episode 
made  even  sympathizers  question  both 
his  coolness  under  fire  and  his  creden- 
tials as  a  bona  fide  Israeli.  "For  a  man 
who  was  born  here,  it  was  an  amazing 
blunder,"  said  David  Bar-Illan.  "There 
was  something  American,  something 
childish,  something  not  quite  mature  or 
self-possessed,  about  it." 

Asked  about  the  episode,  Netanyahu 


66 


VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


forsakes  sound  bites  for  sound  nibbles, 
and  not  especially  polished  ones  at  that. 
"I  made  a  mistake,  and  I  apologized  for 
it,"  he  said.  "That's  all  I  can  say  about 
it."  Did  he  panic?  "This  is  simply  false." 
Did  it  show  that  his  instincts  were  more 
American  than  Israeli?  "This  is  wrong. 
Very  wrong.  It's  wrong." 

"Bibigate"  did  not  derail  the  Netan- 
yahu juggernaut.  In  March  1993  he 
crushed  both  Levy  and  Beni  Begin  for 
the  Likud  leadership,  becoming  the 
youngest  major-party  chief  in  Israel's 
history.  At  the  victory  celebration,  Ne- 
tanyahu gave  his  wife  a  big  kiss  and  re- 
ferred to  her  as  his  "beloved  wife,  Sara, 
who  stood  by  me  ...  through  all  the 
pain  and  obstacles."  Large  segments  of 
the  country  cringed.  "For  a  long  time 
we  haven't  seen  on  the  screen  a  more 
embarrassing  appearance,  more  pathet- 
ic, more  fake,  dripping  with  more  mar- 
garine and  cyclamate,"  wrote  B.  Mi- 
chael in  Ha  'aretz. 

Since  then,  Sara  Netanyahu  has  in- 
variably been  at  her  husband's  side, 
though  it's  unclear  whether  it's  because 
she's  a  trouper,  because  she's  afraid  to 
let  him  out  of  her  sight,  or  because  Bibi's 
advisers  have  told  him  to  keep  her  there 
lest  she  grow  angry  and  torpedo  his  ca- 
reer. "It's  not  going  to  be  a  major  issue, 
but  it  affects  his  credibility,"  said  Nahum 
Barnea,  referring  to  Bibi's  conspicuous 
displays  of  marital  affection. 

Most  religious  Jews  are  concerned 
less  with  marital  compromises  than 
with  territorial  ones  involving  the 
lands  God  promised  the  Jews  in  the  Old 
Testament,  and  are  no  more  perturbed 
by  Netanyahu's  philandering  than  by 
sightings  of  him  noshing  on  Yom  Kip- 
pur  or  eating  bacon  and  eggs  or  his  re- 
cent declaration  that  he's  going  kosher— 
gradually— as  if  it  were  some  kind  of  12- 
step  program.  But  the  scandal's  personal 
consequences  have  been  more  serious. 
His  first  wife  and  their  daughter  fled  Is- 
rael to  get  away  from  the  embarrass- 
ment. (Eighteen -year-old  Noa,  a  student 
at  New  York  University,  will  soon  re- 
turn to  Israel  to  do  her  army  duty.) 
And  his  already  troubled  marriage  grew 
more  difficult,  to  a  degree  that  alarms 
and  saddens  his  friends.  They  say  that 
out  of  jealousy,  possessiveness,  and  dis- 
trust, Sara  has  isolated  him  from  them, 
made  him  distance  himself  from  a 
daughter  he  clearly  loves,  and  taken  to 
berating  him  in  public.  Netanyahu  aides 
caution  some  female  reporters  never 
to  call  him  at  home.  Friends  say  the  sit- 
uation has  forced  him  to  sublimate  fur- 


VANITY  FAIR  /JUNE  1996 


67 


liiSllillHirS 


ther  his  softer  and  more  spontaneous 
side,  as  if  he  feels  he  can't  succeed  polit- 
ically and  be  himself  at  the  same  time. 

"Happiness  is  not  a  parameter  with 
him,"  said  Rolando  Eisen,  who  has  re- 
mained close  to  Netanyahu  since  their 
days  at  the  furniture  company.  "Bibi  is 
an  idealist.  The  moment  he  took  on  the 
country  as  his  objective,  that  became 
his  life." 

One  of  Netanyahu's  closest  American 
friends  agreed.  "Honestly,  my  heart 
aches  for  Bibi,"  he  said.  Of  his  marriage, 
he  added,  "I  think  most  of  the  time  he's 
tuned  it  out.  It  shows  the  guy  has  an  un- 
believably strong  will.  I  think  his  suffer- 
ing with  her  is  incidental  to  the  main  fo- 
cus of  his  life.  Bibi  is  consumed  with  the 
survival  of  the  state  of  Israel." 

Netanyahu  earns  applause  for  taking 
the  Likud  out  of  debt  after  its  electoral 
defeat  in  1992,  for  giving  it  a  constitu- 


comfortable  with  his  right-wing  beliefs. 
More  strikingly,  those  friends  who  will 
support  him  do  so  sometimes  in  spite  of 
their  long  friendships  with  him.  Between 
deep  breaths,  sighs,  and  long  periods  of 
silence,  one  conceded  that,  while  he  still 
liked  Netanyahu,  he  found  his  single- 
mindedness,  his  willingness  to  let  the 
ends  justify  the  means,  regrettable.  "I 
will  vote  for  him,  but  I'm  a  Likud  sup- 
porter even  before  Bibi,"  he  said.  "On 
balance  I  vote  for  him  reasonably  whole- 
heartedly." Asked  how  he  was  going  to 
vote,  another  old  friend  replied,  "I  can't 
vote  for  Peres." 

Despite  his  tantrum,  Netanyahu  relent- 
ed and  agreed  to  meet  me  again,  this 
time  at  his  campaign  headquarters  at 
Newe  Ilan,  in  the  movie  complex  of  the 
Israeli  film  mogul  Yoram  Globus.  For  a 
man  dogged  by  charges  of  artificiality,  it 


Crown  Heights,  Brooklyn,  would  be 
harder-pressed  now  to  lift  him  atop  their 
shoulders,  as  they  once  did  during  his 
United  Nations  days. 

In  our  talk,  Netanyahu  conceded  that 
he'd  handled  his  opponents  roughly,  but 
said  he  had  learned  the  art  of  concilia- 
tion. He  also  said  he  had  become  partly 
inured  to  the  infighting.  "I  don't  want 
to  say  I  don't  feel  anything  and  that  I 
have  an  elephantine  epidermis.  That  is 
not  true.  But  you  do  become  habituat- 
ed," he  said.  He  disputed  claims  that  his 
father  viewed  Jews  as  perpetually,  in- 
evitably under  attack,  and  said  that,  in 
any  case,  that  was  not  his  point  of  view. 
"I  was  and  am  very  sanguine  about  our 
position  in  the  world,"  he  said.  "And  I 
don't  think  that  there's  irretrievable,  un- 
correctable, incorrigible  animosity  against 
us  any  more  than  there  is  against  other 
peoples  or  other  minorities." 

Asked  about  his  reading,  he  responded 


tion,  and  for  transforming  it  from  a 
Middle  Eastern  souk  into  a  modern,  effi- 
cient apparatus.  But  he  underestimated 
the  public's  craving  for  peace,  and  at  a 
series  of  anti-government  rallies,  he  con- 
sorted with  extremists,  prompting  Mrs. 
Rabin's  powerful— and,  many  believe, 
unfair— accusations  against  him. 

Then,  in  seeking  to  proclaim  his  inno- 
cence, he  came  across  as  self-centered 
and  self-pitying.  "He  was  perfectly  will- 
ing to  climb  on  that  tiger  and  ride  it,  and 
when  the  tiger  threw  him  and  bit  Rabin's 
head  off,  he  acted  like  he  had  no  idea 
what  he  had  been  doing,"  said  Ze'ev 
Chafets  of  Tlie  Jerusalem  Report,  who 
dismissed  Netanyahu's  defense  as  Eddie 
HaskelHike.  Larry  King  said,  "He 
should  have  been  incredibly  forceful  after 
the  assassination,  even  a  little  apolo- 
getic. ...  He  should  have  tactically  taken 
some  guilt  over  the  Rabin  thing.  He's 
very  glib,  very  self-assured,  and  that  can 
get  in  your  way  when  you  get  a  Rabin." 

Netanyahu's  numbers  plummeted  and 
his  swagger  disappeared.  Over  the  next 
few  months,  there  was  endless  talk  within 
the  Likud  Party  of  replacing  Netanyahu 
with  the  former  justice  minister  Dan 
Meridor.  Netanyahu,  as  Hirsh  Goodman 
of  The  Jerusalem  Report  put  it,  appeared 
to  be  a  man  "past  his  prime  before  his 
time."  Then  the  bombs  began  exploding. 

Some  of  Netanyahu's  friends  say  they 
won't  vote  for  him,  because  they  are  un- 

68 


is  a  peculiar  setting:  from  Netanyahu's 
office  window  one  looks  out  at  "Globus 
Land,"  a  fake,  Wyatt  Earp-era  Main 
Street,  complete  with  sheriff's  office, 
lunch  counter,  jail,  and  haberdashery. 
We  actually  met  at  a  nearby  restaurant,  a 
place  that  contains  what  is  surely  Israel's 
largest  collection  of  Elvis  Presley  memo- 
rabilia. As  we  spoke,  Elvis  crooned 
"Don't  Be  Cruel,"  "Heartbreak  Hotel," 
and  "Hound  Dog";  they  were  songs 
from  Bibi's  era,  sort  of,  but  it  was  hard 
to  imagine  he'd  ever  known  the  lyrics. 

At  this  meeting,  unlike  at  our  prior  en- 
counters, Netanyahu  was  relaxed,  even 
chipper.  It  was  a  Friday  afternoon,  and 
though  he  regularly  reminds  one  that  the 
Sabbath  is  reserved  for  his  family,  he  did 
not  seem  to  be  in  a  hurry  to  go  any- 
where. He  was  dressed  Israeli-style— that 
is,  casually— rather  than  in  his  usual  sin- 
cere suit.  He  sat  back  comfortably  and 
smoked  little  cigars  called  Rittmeisters 
from  a  tin.  He  could  even  laugh  at  him- 
self, agreeing  that  it  was  incongruous  in- 
deed for  him  once,  when  returning  to  Is- 
rael during  high  school,  to  have  brought 
a  Pete  Seeger  record  for  a  friend.  "That 
was  my  socialist  period,"  he  snickered. 

Life  and  politics  have  aged  Bibi  Ne- 
tanyahu. In  a  few  short  years  in  Israel 
his  hair  has  grown  white,  and  the  man 
once  trim  enough  to  run  laps  around  the 
Central  Park  reservoir  in  his  dress  shoes 
has  grown  heavier.  The  Lubavitchers  of 


that  he  had  just  completed  Nigel  Hamil- 
ton's J.F.K.:  Reckless  Youth,  a  gift  from 
his  father.  What  struck  him  about  it,  he 
said,  were  not  the  similarities  to  his  own 
family,  but  the  differences.  Kennedy,  he 
said,  had  been  overtly  political  from 
childhood  on.  "He  was  to  be  the  presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  and  he  was  ob- 
viously versed,  trained,  schooled,  condi- 
tioned for  that,  with  a  combination  of 
skills  including  charm,  wit,  and  a  fairly 
ruthless  purposefulness,  which  probably 
made  him  a  very  unhappy  man." 

He  denied  that  he  had  sacrificed  his 
humanity  for  his  ambitions.  For  one 
thing,  he  noted,  it  was  bad  politics  to  do 
so.  "We  all  wear  public  masks,"  he  said. 
"Shedding  them  on  occasion  is  probably 
the  best  advice  I  could  give  to  my- 
self. .  .  .  People  get  to  know  you,  get  to 
know  what  you  believe,  what  you  feel, 
what  you  feel  strongly  about." 

I  asked  him  whether  he  considered 
himself  a  happy  man. 

"Some  of  the  time,"  he  replied.  "I  cer- 
tainly had  a  very  happy  childhood." 

Many  predict  that  Netanyahu's  politi- 
cal career  will  be  over  should  he  lose 
this  month.  He  says  he  would  go  off 
and  write  books  were  that  to  happen. 
Others  are  certain  he'll  prevail  sooner 
or  later.  "At  a  certain  point  he  will  he 
prime  minister,"  Nahum  Barnea  told  me, 
"because  he  wants  it  so  much."  D 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


MiiiiwBiii  immmimwi 


LIBERTY  HOUSE 


THE  PHILLIPS  COLLECTION 

Photojournalist  John  Phillips,  who 
captured  the  great  and  good  of 
Europe's  history  for  Life  magazine  from 
1936  to  1951,  is  about  to  publish 
an  extraordinary  200-image  memoir 


Highlights  from  the 

Phillips  oeuvre  include, 

from  top:  a  row  of 

tanned  customers  at  a 

beachfront  bar  on  the 

Riviera;  diners  in  a 

Marseilles  restaurant; 

and  a  meeting  in 

Paris  between  two 

incomparable  aesthetes, 

Coco  Chanel  and 

Cecil  Beaton.  All  three 

photographs  were 

taken  in  1937. 


BY  DAVID  KAMP 


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70 


Twenty-four  years  after  it  ceased  to  publish  week- 
ly, the  original  Life  magazine  continues  to  pay 
cultural  dividends— specifically  the  handsome, 
lavishly  produced  hardcover  retrospectives  put 
together  by  its  surviving  photographers.  John 
Phillips,  now  82  and  living  in  New  York,  was 
Life's  European  correspondent  throughout  its 
heyday.  His  book,  Free  Spirit  in  a  Troubled  World, 
to  be  published  this  September  by  Scalo,  offers  a 
generous,  200 -photograph  look  at  what  he  saw 
over  that  time:  a  trilbied  Neville  Chamberlain 
bending  meekly  into  his  twin -engine  aircraft; 
Coco  Chanel  and  Cecil  Beaton  living  it  up  at  a  masked  ball; 
Thomas  Mann  at  a  cocktail  party,  expressing  delight  at  the  ar- 
ray of  hors  d'oeuvres.  There  are  reminiscences,  too— particu- 
larly worthy  are  Phillips's  stories  of  photographing  Egypt's 
corpulent  King  Farouk,  who  liked  to  drop  in  at  the  U.S.  mili- 
tary attache's  Cairo  apartment  "to  listen  to  the  latest  record- 
ings from  the  States  and  raid  the  refrigerator  for  cold  cuts."  D 

VANITY  FAIR  /JUNE  1996 


The  Eternal  Element  of  Style 


NORDSTROM 


SELECTED  STORES 


nn  dp  sime 


Cherry  blossoms  are  bursting 
over  the  Tidal  Basin  and 
the  Jefferson  Memorial  as 
I  ascend  the  steps  of  the 
United  States  Holocaust  Me- 
morial Museum.  There  is 
to  be  a  learned  seminar  to- 
day, on  the  newest  inter- 
pretation of  the  Final  Solu- 
tion. Daniel  Jonah  Gold- 
hagen,  a  36-year-old  assis- 
tant professor  at  Harvard, 
is  to  defend  his  thesis  in  Hitler's  Willing 
Executioners:  Ordinary  Germans  and  the 
Holocaust,  a  book  which  has  been  a 
spring  sensation. 

Having  immersed  myself  in  this  vol- 
ume for  a  weekend,  I  am  eager  to  ask 
one  big  question  that  cries  to  heaven  for 
an  answer.  It  is  this:  Who  on  earth  does 
Goldhagen  think  he  is  arguing  with?  He 
comes  to  tell  us  that  there  was  a  good 
deal  of  state-  and  church-sponsored  anti- 
Semitism  in  German  culture.  He  adds 
that  the  Nazis  made  great  use  of  Jew 
hatred  in  their  propaganda.  He  goes  on 
to  say  that  many  Germans  took  part  in 
beatings,  killings,  and  roundups  not  be- 
cause they  were  coerced  but  because 
they  liked  the  idea.  He  announces  that 
not  many  Germans  resisted  the  persecu- 
tion of  their  Jewish  countrymen. 

Excuse  me,  but  I  knew  this  and  so 
did  you.  Moreover,  the  sarcastic  phrase 
about  "obeying  orders"  is  not  even  a 
well-known  explanation,  only  a  well- 
known  excuse.  All  the  way  through 
Goldhagen's  presentation,  which  is  one 
tautology  piled  on  another,  I  wait  to 
make  my  point.  And  then  the  two  big 
scholars  present  come  to  the  podium 
with  their  comments,  and  I  realize  I 
have  been  wasting  my  time. 

Sophomoric,  meretricious,  unorigi- 
nal, unhistorical,  a  product  of  media 
hype  by  Knopf  (the  book's  publisher), 
contradictory,  repetitive,  callow  .  .  . 
I'm  just  giving  you  the  gist  of  what 
they  said  about  Hitler's  Willing  Execu- 
tioners. It  must  have  been  quite  an  or- 
deal for  Goldhagen,  who  looks  about 
12,  to  sit  through  this  kind  of  thing 
from  revered  seniors.  Professor  Yehuda 
Bauer  of  Hebrew  University,  for  exam- 
ple, is  effectively  the  academic  founder 
of  the  Yad  Vashem  Holocaust  archives 
in  Jerusalem  and  the  author  of  at  least 
three  of  the  dozen  or  so  standard 
works  on  the  subject.  Professor  Konrad 
Kwiet  is  no  lightweight,  either.  He  is  the 
scholar-in -residence  at  the  Research  In- 
stitute at  the  Holocaust  Museum  and  the 

72 


HITLER'S 
GHOST 

After  an 

uproar  in  the  media, 

St.  Martins  Press 

canceled  David  Irving  s 

biography  of  Nazi 

propaganda  minister 

Joseph  Goebbels. 

They  did  the 

wrong  thing 

BY  CHRISTOPHER  HITCHENS 


adviser  to  the  government 
of  Australia  on  war  crimes. 
I  watch  Goldhagen  being 
ground  between  these  heavy  millstones 
and  two  things  happen  to  me.  First,  I 
feel  a  rush  of  sympathy  for  the  kid. 
Sixty-three  percent  of  German  electors 
voted  against  Hitler  in  the  last  free  elec- 
tions in  Weimar,  says  Bauer  witheringly, 
and  there  were  vicious  Jew-baiters  in 
Germany  in  the  early  19th  century.  So 
how  come,  Mr.  Clever  Young  Historian, 
that  one  time  it  ends  in  blood  and  an- 
other time  not?  If  you  don't  know,  you 
shouldn't  talk.  This  big-time  book  of 
yours  should  have  remained  a  doctoral 
thesis  and  maybe  those  supervisors  at 


Harvard  could  try  harder.  (I'm  para- 
phrasing the  scholars  only  slightly.) 

The  second  thing  that  happens  is  that 
I  feel  a  new  respect  for  the  Research 
Institute  at  the  Holocaust  museum.  It 
can't  have  been  easy,  this  trashing  of  an 
attractive  and  earnest  young  man.  How 
was  he  to  know  that  there  is  more  to 
the  Holocaust  than  meditations  on  cru- 
elty and  the  German  character,  or  that 
he  was  supposed  to  have  a  deep  theo- 
retical knowledge  of  Fascism?  Doesn't 
almost  every  Hollywood  and  pulp  out- 
let make  the  Final  Solution  seem  like  a 
sort  of  morality  tale?  Did  not  Tlie  New 
Republic's  Leon  Wieseltier— whose  re- 
marks closed  this  seminar— once  ob- 
serve mordantly  that  "there's  no  busi- 
ness like  Shoah  business"?  So,  good  for 
the  institute. 

There  is,  of  course,  another  answer 
to  the  question  I  never  asked.  Gold- 
hagen is  involved  in  an  argument 
with  an  unseen  opponent,  and  so  are 
all  the  other  experts  on  the  platform, 
including  Christopher  Browning,  whose 
book  Ordinary  Men  anticipated  Gold- 
hagen's by  four  years.  This  unseen  op- 
ponent is  David  Irving,  a  British  histo- 
rian with  depraved  ideas  about  the 
whole  narrative. 

Irving  does  have  a  rounded  and  de- 
veloped theory  of  Fascism,  which  is  to 
say  that  he  has  studied  it  a  lot  and 
thinks  it's  had  a  bum  rap.  He's  even 
been  quoted  as  calling  himself  a  "mild 
Fascist"  or  "a  moderate  Fascist"— oxy- 
moronic  if  true.  In  the  week  that  I  went 
to  the  Holocaust-museum  seminar,  Ir- 
ving was  hastily  dumped  by  St.  Martin's 
Press,  which  had  undertaken 
to  produce  his  book  on  the 
papers  of  Hitler's  minister 
of  propaganda,  Joseph  Goeb- 
bels, the  choreographer  for 
the  Nuremberg  style,  and 
had  then,  at  the  very  thresh- 
old of  publication,  taken  fright.  Book 
canceled,  author  disowned,  tearful  state- 
ments from  the  top  brass  about  how  if 
only  they  had  known  .  .  . 

Encountering  Tom  Dunne  of  St. 
Martin's  that  very  week,  I  told  him  I 
was  going  to  criticize  him  in  print,  and 
he  replied,  "If  you  want  a  title  for  the 
article,  call  it  'Profiles  in  Prudence.'"  A 
good  joke  from  a  good  man.  But  at 
whose  expense? 

I  have  thought  about  this  a  lot  and  I 
feel  the  need  to  say,  very  clearly,  that  St. 
Martin's  has  disgraced  the  business  of 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


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CELLUUTE  CONTROL: 
RECORD  RESULTS 


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NEW    YORK      IOS   ANGELES      HAWAII 


%. 


HI!  Of  SIM!' 


publishing  and  degraded  the  practice  of 
debate.  David  Irving  is  not  just  a  Fascist 
historian.  He  is  also  a  great  historian  of 
Fascism.  But  you  would  never  have 
known  this  from  the  way  that  the  con- 
troversy was  written  up. 

HITLER'S  spin  ARTIST  was  the  head- 
line on  a  typical  column,  by  Frank  Rich 
in  The  New  York  Times,  raising  the 
alarm  about  the  mere  idea  of  Irving's 
being  published.  TJie  Washington  Post 
was  not  laggard,  saying  that  Irving 
"routinely  refers  to  the  Holocaust  as  a 
hoax."  Jonathan  Yardley,  a  cultural  crit- 
ic of  some  standing,  wrote  a  whole  arti- 
cle that  positively  sighed  with  satisfac- 
tion at  the  idea  that,  having  neither  read 
nor  seen  the  book,  he  could  now  safely 
counsel  others  to  do  likewise.  Nary  a 
voice  was  raised,  in  American  publish- 
ing or  academe  or  journalism,  to  ask  if 
David  Irving  had  anything  to  contribute 
as  a  chronicler. 

Things  were  rather  different  in  my 
country  of  birth,  which  doesn't  even 
have  a  First  Amendment.  More  than 
120  book  sections  of  English  magazines 
and  newspapers  have  requested  copies 
from  Irving's  British  publisher,  and  re- 
views are  pouring  in.  I  might  mention 
Robert  Harris,  author  of  Fatherland  and 
Enigma,  who  wrote  in  the  London 
Evening  Standard  on  April  1  that  "in 
the  words  of  the  military  writer  John 
Keegan:  'No  historian  of  the  Second 
World  War  can  afford  to  ignore  Irving.' 
Few  contemporary  scholars  of  the  Third 
Reich  have  his  depth  of  knowledge,  vir- 
tually none  has  met  as  many  of  its 
leading  figures  and  nobody,  surely,  has 
unearthed  more  original  material— a 
private  archive  known  as  the  'Irving 
Collection,'  always  generously  made 
available  to  other  researchers,  which 
weighs  more  than  half  a  ton." 

Harris  could  have  added  that  his 
own  brilliant  book  Selling  Hitler 
describing  the  1983  forgery  of  "the 
Hitler  Diaries,"  which  hoodwinked  a 
large  chunk  of  the  British  establishment 
(including  historians  of  the  caliber  of 
Hugh  Trevor-Roper,  author  of  Tlie  Last 
Days  of  Hitler)— was  made  possible  in 
part  by  Irving's  finding  that  those 
nasty  papers  were  indeed  a  fake.  Ir- 
ving rendered  another  service  by  un- 
masking some  spurious  documents 
connecting  Churchill  and  Mussolini. 
He  speaks  faultless  German.  He  has, 
in  the  most  recent  case,  been  the  first 
historian  to  see  some  75,000  pages  of 
diary  entries  by  Joseph  Goebbels,  held 
in  secrecy  in  Moscow  from   1945  to 


1992.  His  studies  of  the  Churchill- 
Roosevelt  relationship,  of  the  bombing 
of  Dresden,  of  the  campaigns  of  Rom- 
mel and  others,  are  such  that  you  can't 
say  you  know  the  subject  at  all  unless 
you  have  read  them.  And,  incidentally, 
he  has  never  and  not  once  described  the 
Holocaust  as  "a  hoax." 

I  have  caught  David  Ir- 
ving out,  just  by  my  own 
researches,  in  one  grossly 
anti-Jewish  statement  and 
one  wildly  paranoid  hy- 
pothesis and  several  fla- 
grant contradictions.  But  I 
learned  a  lot  in  the  process 
of  doing  so.  It's  unimpor- 
tant to  me  that  Irving  is 
my  political  polar  oppo- 
site. If  I  didn't  read  my  polar  oppo- 
nents, I'd  be  even  stupider  than  I  am. 
But  what  did  I  get  when  I  went  round 
that  Holocaust  semi- 
nar? Professors  Bau- 
er and  Kwiet  and 
Browning,  asked  if 
they  agreed  with  the 
St.  Martin's  decision, 
shrank  as  if  I  had  in- 
vited them  to  a  Witch- 
es' Sabbath.  None  of 
them  would  say  that 
Irving  should  never  be  published,  but 
all  of  them  said  that  if  it  were  up  to 
them  he  would  not  be. 

Deborah  Lipstadf,  author  of  the  stan- 
dard text  Denying  the  Holocaust,  told 
The  New  York  Times  that  one  wouldn't 
and  shouldn't  publish  David  Duke  on 
race  relations,  and  (varying  her  pitch  a 
bit)  told  The  Washington  Post  that  one 
wouldn't  and  shouldn't  publish  Jeffrey 
Dahmer  on  man-boy  love.  What  is  this 
vertiginous  nonsense?  These  are  suppos- 
edly experienced  historians  who  claim 
to  have  looked  mass  death  in  the  face, 
without  flinching.  And  they  can't  take 
the  idea  of  a  debate  with  David  Irving? 
Quite  apart  from  the  fact  that  many 
publishers  would  have  rushed  to  pro- 
mote a  Jeffrey  Dahmer  manuscript, 
what  are  we  afraid  of  here? 

I  have  now  read  the  exchange  of  cor- 
respondence between  Irving  and  St. 
Martin's.  For  a  long  time,  everything 
was  hunky-dory.  The  manuscript  was 
read  seven  times  in  15  months  (and  un- 
derstandably, since  it  contained  amazing 
new  material).  The  Military  Book  Club 
chose  it  as  a  main  selection.  Sales  repre- 
sentatives made  enthusiastic  noises.  And 
then,  after  a  few  hysterical  and  old- 
maidish  articles  in  the  press  (Eeek-a 
Nazi!),  Irving  is  told  that  his  contract  is 


Above,  David  Irving 

in  his  office  in  1992; 

below,  Daniel  Goldhagen 

at  the  Holocaust 

Memorial  Museum 

seminar,  April  8. 


void.  He  is  told  this  not  by  the  publish- 
ers but  by  members  of  the  press  tele- 
phoning him  for  his  reaction. 

I  remember  when  my  friend  Aryeh 
Neier,  of  the  American  Civil  Liberties 
Union  (whose  parents  got  out  of  Berlin 
just  in  time),  made  the  decision  to  up- 
hold the  right  of  the  Amer- 
ican Nazi  Party  to  mount  a 
demonstration  in  Illinois 
in  1978.  The  A.C.L.U.  lost 
a  lot  of  donors  and  sub- 
scribers that  time.  In  a 
fine  book  entitled  Defend- 
ing My  Enemy,  Neier  ex- 
plained soothingly  that  the 
law  on  free  ex- 
pression covers 
everybody,  and 
thus  that  in  de- 
fending it  for 
anybody  you 
defend  it  for 
everybody. 
After  weeks 
of  general  acquiescence  on  the  Ir- 
ving suppression,  Steve  Wasserman  of 
Times  Books  was  moved  to  push 
Neier's  point  with  his  colleagues  at 
Random  House.  In  a  contentious 
meeting,  it  was  agreed  they  would  ac- 
tually read  the  book.  Someone  will  no 
doubt  pick  up  where  St.  Martin's  left  off; 
until  then,  one  will  have  to  seek  David  Ir- 
ving on  some  ghastly  Brownshirt  Web 
site,  which  will  parade  its  bravery  in  mak- 
ing the  occult  facts  into  revealed  truth.  Is 
this  what  the  established  experts  want? 

A  little  depressed  at  this  last  thought, 
I  made  a  late-night  call  to  Professor 
Raul  Hilberg  at  the  University  of  Ver- 
mont. Professor  Hilberg's  book  Tlie  De- 
struction  of  the  European  Jews  was  the 
original  text  on  the  Holocaust,  published 
in  1961.  He  is  acknowledged  as  an  ances- 
tor on  the  matter.  He  sighed  a  bit  when 
I  mentioned  Irving,  whom  he  regards  as 
a  slippery  customer  but  with  whom  he 
has  had  correspondence  about  docu- 
ments and  details.  A  very  good  man  in 
footnotes  and  archives,  allowed  Hilberg, 
but  you  had  to  suspect  his  motives. 
However:  "If  these  people  want  to 
speak,  let  them.  It  only  leads  those  of  us 
who  do  research  to  re-examine  what  we 
might  have  considered  as  obvious.  And 
that's  useful  for  us.  I  have  quoted  Eich- 
mann  references  that  come  from  a  neo- 
Nazi  publishing  house.  I  am  not  for 
taboos  and  I  am  not  for  repression." 

Currently,  though,  there  is  a  taboo. 
And  who  really  believes  that  if  it  were 
lifted  any  honest  person  would  be  the 
loser?  □ 


74 


VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


<J\alAjl/v  cxiaiJuuAji/  vuxAJuru^ 
0JJLAJ2JZ/U  vMurv  rvcu^uria/  cu  V 


*JL- 


-told  marshmollow 


Rotate  until  gooey. 


Assemble  chocolate  bar 
.  with  graham  cracker. 


^J^^C&&/^hxvJ2Aj 


answer.  (Eddie  conveniently  claimed  such  trips  gave  him  yet  another 
chance  to  test  the  clothing  he  designed  and  sold.)  Men  and  women 
who  "have  a  life"— or  would  if  they  only  had  a  free  moment—may  call 
for  a  nearby  store  or  catalog  of  our  time-tested  clothing.  800-  789- 1387. 


ENDLESS  YOUTH 


iiuent,  educated  baby-boomers  are  hoping  to  celebrate 
their  100th  birthdays,  thanks  to  biotechnological 
breakthroughs,  a  master  hormone  called  DHEA,  and  a 
handful  of  doctors  bent  on  defying  old  age 

BY  GAIL  SHEEHY 


HORMONIC 
CONVERGENCE 
Dr.  Samuel  Yen,  67, 
wise  warrior  in 
the  revolution  against 
aging,  studies  DHEA 
and  uses  it  himself — 
to  maintain  his 
sense  of  command 
and  his  tennis  game. 


ow  long  do  you  want  to 
live?" 

The  scientist  looked  star- 
tled at  this  most  personal 
of  questions.  A  bold  biotech 
entrepreneur,  he  seemed  be- 
yond all  that.  He  had  just 
given  me  a  glimpse  of  a 
world  where  aging  appears 
to  be  postponable.  Indefi- 
nitely. 

Dr.  William  Haseltine  is 


a  Berkeley  rebel  who  became  a  Harvard 
professor.  A  few  years  ago,  before  he 
passed  50,  a  venture  capitalist  lured  him 
out  of  academic  confinement  to  start  Hu- 
man Genome  Sciences,  a  company 
whose  mission  is  to  isolate  just  about 
every  unknown  gene  on  the  human -parts 
list  and  patent— literally  patent— those  use- 
ful in  the  prevention  and  treatment  of 
disease.  A  silky  self-promoter  with 
enough  ambition  for  two  lifetimes,  Hasel- 
tine is  in  a  race  against  his  own  deadline. 


76 


He  wants  in  10  years  to 
be  head  of  a  major  phar- 
maceutical company— 
'  his  own.  But  he  doesn't 
allow  his  scientific 
goals  to  interfere  with 
the  cultural  pleasures 
he  pursues  as  he 
.  shuttles  between  his 
Georgetown  house 
and  his  Manhat- 
tan apartment  on 
Fifth  Avenue 
with  his  wife, 
Gale  Hayman 
(the  creator  of 
Giorgio  perfume). 
He  wants  it  all.  And 
he  has  no  intention  of 
aging  according  to  any- 
one's outmoded  clock. 
"I  want  to  live  as  long 
as  I'm  healthy,"  he  answers. 
"What  age  do  you  have 
in  mind?" 
"One  hundred." 
Believe  it  or  not,  that's  the  going  bet 
for  affluent,  well-educated  boomers  as 
they  cross  the  age-50  line:  a  full  centu- 
ry. Just  another  pipe  dream  of  age-pho- 
bic narcissists?  Not  exactly.  Following 
fast  on  the  heels  of  the  digital  age  are 
biotechnological  breakthroughs  and  a 
new  approach  to  medicine  that  have  al- 
ready launched  an  anti-aging  revolu- 
tion. In  April,  scientists  discovered  a 
gene  which  they  believe  affects  aging  in 
humans.  Later  this  year,  the  National 
Institute  on  Aging  will  host  a  meeting 
to  design  studies  focusing  on  disease- 
free  survival  and  gene  research.  This  is 
what  Americans  have  been  waiting  for 
since  the  country  began.  In  the  16th 
century,  Spanish  explorer  Ponce  de 
Leon  sailed  to  St.  Augustine,  Florida, 
looking  for  springs  reputed  to  infuse 
young  blood  into  old  veins.  But  before 
his  travels  finally  ceased,  he  ran  into  an 
Indian  arrow,  underscoring  the  bitter- 
sweet conceit  of  believing  ourselves  ca- 
pable and  deserving  of  perpetual  life. 

Today  there  is  an  unspoken  belief 
that  if  we  think  right,  eat  right,  breathe 
right,  relax  right,  and  put  back  whatev- 
er the  body  loses  as  part  of  the  aging 
process,  we  can  postpone  disease  and 
dependency  indefinitely.  We  can  look 
better  longer  and  make  ourselves  even 
leaner  than  in  youth  by  vigorous  exer- 
cise. And  quite  possibly  we  can  slow,  or 
even  reverse,  the  body's  internal  aging 
clock.  So  far,  so  good.  The  deficits  in 
mental  acuity  and  decreases  in  physical 
powers  that  have  been  considered  un- 

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Science 


avoidable  companions  of  the  late  after- 
noon of  life  are,  it  turns  out,  neither  in- 
evitable nor  immutable.  Recent  studies 
have  demonstrated  that  people  are 
largely  in  charge  of  how  successfully 
they  age:  it's  mental  outlook  and  be- 
havior that  make  the  difference  in  later 
life.  And  new,  unpublished  government 
studies  of  people  at  all  socioeconomic 
levels  show  that  most  people  in  Ameri- 
ca are  already  aging  very  well. 

But  Ponce  de  Leon's  quest  for  the 
Fountain  of  Youth  has  been  topped 
in  our  times  by  a  striving  for  youth 
that  is  characteristically  American  in 
its  optimism— yet  possibly  out  of  con 
trol.  Roughly  one  in  three 
adults,  most  of  them  educat- 
ed, upper-income  white 
Americans  under  age 
50,  is  now  shopping  for 
unconventional  med- 
ical treatments,  includ- 
ing megavitamins  and 
unproven  "miracle"  hor- 
mone supplements  such  as 
melatonin.  They  are  spending  ' 
more  than  $10  billion  a  year  in 
hopes  that  their  efforts  will  act  as  a 
sort  of  additional  insurance,  guarantee- 
ing them  a  much-extended  state  of  well- 
ness. No  longer  merely  the  fetish  of 
aristocrats  and  society  matrons  with 
shrink-wrapped  skin,  the  attempt  to 
slow  aging  with  a  sexy  armamentarium 
of  designer  hormones  and  alternative 
medical  therapies  has  seized  the  popular 
imagination.  How  much  of  all  this  is 
just  hype,  misplaced  hope,  desperation? 
And  how  much  of  it  is  real?  Who  are 
the  authentic  pioneers? 

My  exploration  began  in  Ponce  de 
Leon's  territory,  modern-day  Florida, 
at  the  very  citadel  of  mass  culture— Dis- 
ney World— where  I  participated  in  a 
new,  ail-American  phenomenon:  the 
Health  Show. 

I  found  myself  in  a  coffee  shop,  a 
place  crawling  with  antsy  toddlers  and 
hollow-eyed  parents  in  their  sleep- 
deprived  30s.  I  also  noticed  an  older 
crowd.  But  rather  than  the  silver-haired 
retirees  in  pastel  sweat  suits  I  had  envi- 
sioned, these  older  folks  were  couples 
who  appeared  rested  and  well  recov- 
ered from  the  long  emergency  of  par- 
enthood. Most  of  them  looked  indeter- 
minately middle-aged. 

These  relaxed,  ruddy-cheeked  people 
were  among  the  4,000  registrants  at  the 
three-day  Health  Show.  Some  had 
come  to  Florida  from  places  as  far 
away  as  Wisconsin  and  Canada  to  find 
out  how  to  "manage  my  most  precious 

78 


asset— my  health,"  as  everyone  seemed 
to  put  it.  An  eclectic  lineup  of  experts 
awaited  them,  ranging  from  Robert 
Pritikin  of  the  Pritikin  Longevity  Cen- 
ter to  the  medicine/miracles  man,  Dr. 
Bernie  Siegel.  I  had  been  asked  to  hold 
a  seminar  billed  as  "Male  Menopause: 
Myth  or  Reality?"  (a  subject  about 
which  I  had  written  for  Vanity  Fair  in 
April  1993).  My  co-leader.  Dr.  Ken- 
neth Goldberg,  teaches  men  how  to 
tune  up  their  bodies  at  his  Male  Health 
Center  in  Dallas.  We  expected  no  more 
than  a  hundred  of  the  registrants  to 
show    up.    The 


In  the  next  few  years,  people  will 
seek  out  anti-aging 

specialists  for  custom-designed 
hormone  cocktails. 


ballroom  quickly 
filled  with  about  500,  includ- 
ing people  as  young  as  their  early  40s. 

Asked  who  among  them  believed  in 
male  menopause,  three-quarters  of  the 
attendees  raised  their  hands.  Only  a 
dozen  had  talked  about  it  with  a  health- 
care professional,  and  the  usual  re- 
sponse had  been:  "What  do  you  expect? 
You're  getting  old."  A  man  of  60,  a  for- 
mer high-school  football  star  no  less,  tes- 
tified to  "hot  flashes,  night  sweats— the 
whole  nine  yards,  just  like  my  wife."  He 
also  volunteered  that  he  uses  a  testos- 
terone gel  daily,  the  kind  of  public  ad- 
mission that  even  a  decade  ago  would 
have  cast  him  as  a  traitor  to  his  sex. 

How  important,  we  asked  the  audi- 
ence, is  sexual  intimacy  to  you  at  this 
stage  of  life?  A  distinguished-looking 
man  earned  hearty  applause  when  he 
said,  "I  think  we  can  live  without  it. 
But  1  don't  want  to,  and  I  don't  think 
my  wife  does,  either."  A  woman  across 
the  room,  50ish,  but  valiantly  blonde 
and  slim,  stood  up  to  offer  a  wife's 
ironic  perspective.  "My  husband  has 
what  you  call  'widower's  impotence.' 
The  problem  is,  I'm  not  dead."  She 
added,  "The  need  and  yearning  for  sex 
I  don't  think  ever  leave  you." 

Scenes  like  these  dramatize  the 
growing  determination  of  people  who 
don't  want  to  age  the  way  their  parents 
did— passively.   They    can't   afford    to. 


Everything  has  changed.  No  one  ever 
prepared  us  for  the  possibility  that  we 
might  live  long  enough  to  see  our 
grandchildren  go  bald.  Back  when  we 
were  buttering  our  bread  with  abandon 
and  slathering  on  baby  oil  and  iodine 
to  roast  our  skins  in  the  sun,  who  ever 
dreamed  we'd  be  looking  at  an  adult 
life  span  where  60-year-olds  would  be 
fighting  with  their  85-year-old  parents 
about  whether  or  not  it  was  time  for 
the  rest  home?  And  with  so  many  cou- 
ples today  waiting  until  their  40s  to 
have  children,  Mom  may  need  bifocals 
just  to  breast-feed.  How  are  she  and 
Dad  going  to  keep  up  with  their  in 
vitro  twins  when  the  kids'  adoles- 
cence coincides  with  the  parents' 
middlescence? 

The  spectrum  of  anti-aging 
proponents  that  runs  between 
Dr.  William  Haseltine's  high- 
tech  gene  lab  and  a  Florida 
Health  Show  is  intimidating. 
And  then  there  are  our  old  val- 
ues to  contend  with:  for  genera- 
tions we  have  all  been  told  to  ac- 
cept slowing  down  and  growing  shape- 
less. Now  we  are  as  ambivalent  about 
not  aging  as  we  once  were  about  grow- 
ing old.  I  mean,  picture  your  father  us- 
ing a  testosterone  gel. 

Hormones  are  the  BMWs  of  the  90s. 
The  cognoscenti  on  both  coasts  al- 
ready have  made  their  choices.  In 
the  next  few  years  all  kinds  of  people, 
particularly  affluent  boomers,  will  seek 
out  anti-aging  specialists  for  custom-de- 
signed hormone  cocktails,  hoping  to  re- 
supply  the  body  with  what  it  loses  after 
its  physiological  peak  between  the  ages 
of  25  and  30.  Hormone  specialists  are 
now  pumped  for  information  at  fancy 
dinner  parties  the  way  real-estate  ma- 
vens  and  junk-bond  dealers  were  in  the 
recent  past.  More  and  more  hormones 
that  regulate  bodily  processes  are  being 
discovered.  Besides  the  familiar  ones 
(estrogen,  testosterone,  and  the  super- 
seller,  melatonin),  a  master  hormone 
known  as  DHEA  has  earned  enough 
respect  to  break  into  the  national  spot- 
light as  the  most  broadly  useful  natural 
medicine  in  the  battle  to  resist  aging. 
But  before  scientists  have  vouched  for 
its  safety,  the  hype  has  spread  as  far  as 
supermarket  tabloids  such  as  the  Na- 
tional Examiner,    where   the   headline 

WONDER  DRUG  STOPS  YOU  FROM  AGING 

appeared  in  the  same  size  type  as  my 

WILD     NIGHT     WITH     THE     HONKY-TONK 
KILLER. 

Human  growth  hormone,  a  metabolite 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


OTCP 


made  by  the  body,  has  also  been  touted 
as  a  regenerative  supplement.  But  re- 
sponsible experts  warn  that  at  this  point 
human  growth  hormone  carries  serious 
potential  dangers  to  health.  Nevertheless, 
the  new  breed  of  hormone  hucksters  who 
push  their  wares  via  chat  shows  and 
"Insta-books"  are  already  looking  for 
big  sales  and  big  dollars.  Howard  Tur- 
ney,  a  nonscientist  without  a  high-school 
diploma,  set  up  an  underground  supply 
line  of  the  stuff,  channeling  the  hor- 
mone from  an  unidentified  Mexican  dis- 
tributor through  38  American  doctors, 
handsomely  commissioned,  who  will 
prescribe  it  to  patients  desperate  enough 
to  pay  $13,000  for  a  year's  supply. 

But  this  is  only  the  tip  of  the  ice- 
berg. In  the  very  near  future,  genetic 
research  will  allow  doctors  to  use  our 
own  bodies  as  pharmacies.  Instead  of 
relying  solely  on  drugs  or  surgery  to 
cure  our  bodily  ills  after  they  develop, 
we  will  use  compounds  derived  from 
the  body  to  shore  it  up  where  it's  weak 
or  burning  out.  Anti-aging  specialists 
will  offer  protein  and  metabolic  prod- 
ucts to  help  rejuvenate  the  circulatory 
system,  revitalize  kidney  function,  and 
prime  the  pump  of  our  intestines,  the 
better  to  absorb  lifesaving  nutrients. 

The  real  leaders  in  the  anti-aging 
field  are  physicians  and  scientists— a 
small  vanguard  of  men  who  feel  that 
time  is  running  out  on  their  ambitions. 
They  are  not  New  Age  flakes  but  artic- 
ulate and  inquisitive  members  of  the 
medical  establishment.  Besides  Dr.  Ha- 
seltine,  there  is  Dr.  Samuel  Yen— 67 
and  a  world-renowned  endocrinologist 
at  the  University  of  California,  San 
Diego  (U.C.S.D.)— whose  studies  of 
DHEA  are  highly  regarded  and  influ- 
ential. Similarly  respected  is  Dr.  Nor- 
man Orentreich,  73,  a  Fifth  Avenue 
dermatologist  who  maintains  his  own 
extensive  research  laboratory.  Dr.  Wil- 
liam Regelson,  a  medical  oncologist  at 
the  Medical  College  of  Virginia,  has 
put  his  reputation  as  a  distinguished  re- 
searcher on  the  line  by  becoming  one 
of  the  "popularizers."  All  of  these  doc- 
tors except  Dr.  Haseltine  personally 
use  hormones.  (Each  has  his  favorite.) 
They  cite  benefits  ranging  from  healthi- 
er sex  drives  to  an  increased  sense  of 
well-being  and  feelings  of  taking  con- 
trol of  their  lives  again. 

"I  can't  wait  30  more  years  for  the 
National  Institute  on  Aging  and  double- 
blind  studies  to  save  my  ass,"  says  the 
salty  70-year-old  Dr.  Regelson,  who 
co-authored  the  best-seller  The  Mela- 
tonin Miracle.  Last  summer,  drugstores 

VANITY  FAIR  /JUNE  1996 


were  swamped  when  the  media  began 
to  report  his  claim  that  a  dose  a  day  of 
melatonin  at  bedtime  (half  a  milligram 
to  five  milligrams)  can  make  you  feel 
and  look  younger.  The  huge  GNC 
chain  was  pushing  out  4,000  bottles  a 
day  nationally.  Signs  went  up  in  Man- 
hattan pharmacies:  we  have  melato- 
nin today. 

Few  doctors  dispute  the  fact  that  mela- 
tonin, which  is  produced  by  the  pineal 
gland,  is  an  effective  natural  sleeping 
potion  and  a  welcome  solution  to  jet 
lag.  But  even  advocates  would  be  hard- 
pressed  to  document  the  more  extrava- 
gant claims  made  for  what  has  become 
the  poor  man's  Prozac 
an  inexpensive  over- 
the-counter  psychophar- 
macological  panacea. 
With  the  world  gone 
melatonin-mad  and 
millions  medicating 
themselves  without 
medical  supervision 
or  advice,  Dr.  Regel- 
son—who  says  he 
personally  takes  only 
one -tenth  of  a  mil- 
ligram a  day— has  be- 
come the  target  of  a 
backlash  by  the  med- 
ical establishment.  Oth- 
er professionals  fear  that 
consumers,  happy  with  the 
effects  of  a  small  dose,  will 
gradually  opt  for  more  and 
more,  crippling  the  natural  production  in 
the  glands  of  their  own  bodies. 

Regelson's  more  conventional  col- 
leagues recently  refused  to  allow  him 
to  debate  the  powers  of  the  pineal  ag- 
ing clock  at  a  scientific  conference. 
These  skeptics,  unlike  Regelson,  still 
see  aging  as  a  random  collection  of 
separate  diseases  and  physiological 
changes,  rather  than  as  the  product  of 
an  internal  biological  clock  that  can  be 
manipulated.  Regelson  blames  the  prej- 
udices of  youth  for  what  he  sees  as  his 
persecution.  "The  real  reason  the  Na- 
tional Institute  on  Aging  hasn't  moved 
on  anti-aging  research  is  that  most  of 
them  are  40,"  he  grumbles.  "When 
you're  that  age,  you're  in  no  hurry." 

Over  lunch  in  Mill  Valley,  Califor- 
nia, Regelson  definitely  appears  to  be  a 
man  in  a  hurry.  He  has  already  lost  in- 
terest in  the  hormone  that  launched  his 
lucrative  literary  career,  and  is  now 
touting  DHEA,  the  most  plentiful  ste- 
roid hormone  in  the  human  body. 
Regelson  has  been  tracking  DHEA  for 
15  years.  It  is  not  hyperbole  to  say  that 


One  of  the 
subtle  effects  of 

DHEA  on  most 
people,  says  Yen, 
is  to  make  them 

feel  stronger, 
more  in  charge. 


he  is  a  living  advertisement  for  his 
cause.  Not  70,  you  think,  no  way.  This 
agile  man  in  a  black  turtleneck,  jeans, 
and  silver-buckled  belt  looks  50  maybe. 
His  eyes,  dark  and  gleaming,  look 
nothing  like  the  dried-out  stares  of 
many  men  of  the  same  age.  He  calls 
his  enthusiastic  expression  the  "limbic 
look,"  but  eyes  are  not  what  Regelson 
wants  to  talk  about. 

"What  is  it  that  governs  a  male's  in- 
terest in  aging?"  he  demands  rhetorical- 
ly, leaving  no  time  for  response.  "The 
fear  of  impotence.  Our  brain  is  con- 
trolled by  the  penis  to  a  large  extent. 
So  if  you  don't  realize  that  testosterone 
and  other  hormones  associated 
with  aging  fail,  you're  going 
to  have  to  get  used  to  a 
decline  in  your  sex  drive. 
It  sort  of  creeps  up  on 
men.  I  think  youthfulness 
is  enjoying  and  express- 
ing your  libido  at  age 
70."  He  wiggles  his 
stocking  feet  under  the 
glass  lunch  table. 

"I  take  DHEA  be- 
cause I'm  trying  to  de- 
lay aging  as  a  physio- 
logical event  in  my  life," 
he  continues,  emphasizing 
that  he  is  talking  about 
hormone  replacement,  not 
overdosing,  which  is  as  much  a 
danger  with  DHEA  as  with  mela- 
tonin. DHEA  is  naturally  excreted  by 
the  adrenal  glands  but  declines  steadily 
as  we  age.  No  one  knows  what  the 
proper  maintenance  dose  of  DHEA  is, 
or  what  different  strengths  are  appro- 
priate for  men  and  women.  Small 
amounts,  Regelson  says,  can  have  star- 
tling effects,  and  he  is  not  talking 
about  the  reduction  of  jet  lag. 

"When  you're  over  60  and  you  wake 
up  in  the  morning  with  the  flag  flying, 
it  comes  as  a  surprise.  When  I  started 
taking  DHEA  nine  years  ago,  the 
change  in  my  libido  was  striking.  It 
was  funny  as  hell.  I  mean,  I  felt  like  I 
was  20  years  old  again." 

He  tells  me  he's  just  been  hired  to 
rush  out  a  book  on  DHEA  for  Simon 
&  Schuster. 

Dr.  Samuel  Yen,  the  country's  pre- 
mier DHEA  researcher,  is  a  digni- 
fied Chinese-American  scientist  with 
waves  of  silver-tipped  black  hair.  He 
stirred  up  the  scientific  establishment 
last  June  at  a  meeting  now  considered 
landmark.  The  New  York  Academy  of 
Sciences  was  hosting  a  conference  called 

81 


TIGHT  GENES 

Dr.  William  Haseltine,  51, 

with  his  wife,  Gale  Hayman. 

He  has  built  a  high-tech  medical 

business  on  identifying 

the  human  genes  that  cause  the 

diseases  of  aging.  If  he 

succeeds,  an  80-year-old  woman 

may  never  look  the  same. 


one  Known  as 


has  earned  enough  respect  to  break  into  the 
national  spotlight  as  the  most 
broadly  useful  natural  medicine  in  the 
battle  to  resist  aging.  ^ 


"Dehydroepiandros- 
terone  (DHEA)  and  Aging"— a  measure 
of  the  hormone's  respectability.  After 
his  three  decades  of  experience  with 
DHEA,  Dr.  Yen  was  ready  to  report 
the  dramatic  results  from  his  latest 
study:  DHEA  in  replacement  doses  ac- 
tivates the  immune  system.  His  subjects 
have  also  reported  increases  in  their 
general  feeling  of  well-being;  some  im- 
proved more  than  85  percent.  Most 
users  experienced  a  lift  in  energy,  ele- 
vated mood,  a  more  relaxed  feeling, 
and  greater  ability  to  cope  with  stress- 
ful events.  All  this  and  it  brings  back  a 
wasted  libido,  too? 

Well,  not  necessarily.  According  to 
Dr.  Yen,  the  hormone  has  no  measur- 
able effect  on  libido,  despite  Dr.  Regel- 
son's  claims.  The  reason  behind  such  a 
fundamental  disagreement  is  the  capa- 
ciousness of  this  master  hormone  itself. 
Once  in  the  bloodstream,  DHEA  con- 
verts to  both  estrogen  and  testosterone. 
And  just  to  make  it  more  confusing,  it 
turns  into  both  female  and  male  hor- 
mones in  both  women  and  men— with 


great  individual  variability.  No 
one  can  count  on  the  same  re- 
sults. Dr.  Norman  Orentreich. 
who  prescribes  DHEA  for 
some  of  his  patients,  walks  a 
middle  ground  on  the  sexuali- 
ty issue.  Though  he  does  not 
emphasize  an  increased  sex 
drive  as  one  of  the  hormone's 
benefits,  he  notes  that  "some 
women  convert  low  levels 
of  DHEA  to  potent  lev- 
els of  male  hormone 
very  quickly.  Others 
barely  convert  it  at 
all."  So.  how  does 
this  hormone 
really  work? 
Dr.  Yen  first 
noticed  the  pow- 
er of  DHEA  35 
years  ago  at  Har- 
vard Medical  School, 
where  his  mentor  was 
doing  work  on  human  fe- 
tuses. In  the  last  months  of 
pregnancy,  Yen  observed,  fetal  adrenal 
glands  suddenly  gush  with  the  produc- 
tion of  DHEA— just  as  the  body  is  ex- 
periencing its  most  significant  prenatal 
splurge  of  growth.  Levels  fall  immedi- 
ately after  birth.  The  hormone  peaks 
again  around  the  age  of  12,  playing  a 
major  role  in  the  initiation  of  puberty. 
It  remains  high  until  age  25  or  30  and 
then  begins  a  consistent  downward 
slide.  By  age  75  or  80,  it  is  almost  non- 
existent. The  cycle  of  DHEA  produc- 
tion intrigued  the  doctor. 

Yen  has  realized  in  the  last  decade 
of  his  work  on  the  hormone  that 
"DHEA  is  not  just  for  making  estrogen 
and  androgen,  but  it  might  have  other 
biological  functions,  functions  actually 
related  to  growth." 

Seven  years  ago  Dr.  Yen,  then  trans- 
planted in  Southern  California,  decid- 
ed to  do  a  proper  double-blind  study 
of  DHEA.  It  was  the  first  such  study 
on  humans.  He  meant  only  to  decipher 
whether  it  had  a  biological  effect  in 
adults.  But  to  his  great  surprise  he  dis- 
covered that  DHEA  elevated  the  levels 
of  IGF-I,  a  key  mediator  of  human 
growth  hormone  in  the  body  and  the 


hormonal  system's  master  builder.  Ex- 
cited, his  theoretical  mind  began  syn- 
thesizing the  deficits  of  growing  older: 
the  levels  of  both  DHEA  and  human 
growth  hormone  decline  with  age,  and 
the  body's  ability  to  metabolize  fats, 
sugars,  and  important  proteins  also  di- 
minishes rapidly  between  the  ages  of 
50  and  60.  "Therefore,  your  total  met- 
abolic system  declines  in  efficiency," 
he  concluded,  "so  you  may  not  feel  as 
strong."  Or  as  upbeat.  "You  may  sud- 
denly realize  that  your  well-being  is 
not  there  anymore,"  confirms  Dr.  Yen. 

The  scientist  set  out  to  test  a  hunch: 
that  DHEA  could  counteract,  natural- 
ly, the  depression  that  so  often  accom- 
panies growing  older.  It  was  an  entire- 
ly new  concept.  He  also  wanted  to 
know  if  the  immune  system  could  be 
booted  up  again  to  its  youthful  vigi- 
lance. Yen's  early  studies,  he  says,  veri- 
fied that  the  hormone  DHEA  steadily 
increases  muscle  strength  and  physical 
mobility  in  most  men  and  women, 
while  making  bodies  leaner.  And,  like 
melatonin,  it  promotes  deeper,  more 
restorative  sleep.  Yen  is  careful  to  em- 
phasize, however,  that  the  greatest  ben- 
efits are  usually  psychological,  and 
very  subtle. 

"I  take  endless  vitamins  and  supple- 
ments," says  Tom  Green,  a  well-toned 
owner  and  manager  of  San  Diego  apart- 
ment properties.  But  he  answered  an  ad 
for  one  of  Dr.  Yen's  anti-aging  studies 
because,  at  56,  he  was  aware  of  a  cer- 
tain entropy.  During  the  six  months  he 
was  taking  DHEA,  Green  recalls,  he 
felt  "that  tingle  of  excitement,  like  when 
you  were  in  your  20s.  I'd  forgotten  that 
I  had  lost  a  lot  of  it." 

Maria  Bowman,  a  tall,  vividly  attired 
Mexican -American  woman  who  met 
me  in  a  parking  lot  between  her  ap- 
pointments as  a  busy  San  Diego  Coun- 
ty real-estate  agent,  remembers  with 
great  nostalgia  the  dynamo  she  was  for 
the  six  months  during  which  she  re- 
ceived daily  doses  of  DHEA  as  another 
of  Dr.  Yen's  subjects.  Bowman  had  al- 
ways been  a  rebel.  Raising  four  chil- 
dren as  a  single  mother  had  clipped 
her  wings,  but  armed  with  a  B.A. 
earned  in  middle  age,  she  figured  it  was 
time  to  let  it  rip.  "I  forgot  that  children 
come  back  for  rebound  time  with 
Mom— and  multiply,"  she  says.  A  fami- 
ly tragedy  also  put  her  back  in  the  full- 
time  mothering  role,  caring  for  her 
nine-year-old  grandson.  The  inside  of 
her  aging  Lincoln  Continental  became 
half  playroom,  half  real-estate  office. 
Her  body  was  like  an  energy  sieve. 


VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


"Shortly  after  I  won  custody  of  my 
grandchild,  the  study  was  announced 
and  I  thought,  I  need  some  energy, 
quick!"  she  recalls.  She  wasn't  told 
when  she  was  on  the  hormone  supple- 
ment and  when  she  was  on  a  placebo. 
"But  my  body  knew.  My  hair  got  long- 
er and  shinier.  I  even  remember  my 
breasts  getting  bigger  and  sexier."  She 
shimmies  a  little  in  her  purple  silk 
blouse.  "I  was  doing  more  and  more." 
She  didn't  notice  how  much  more  until 
the  18-hour  cleanathon  she  performed 
before  a  family  visit.  "I  thought,  I  am 
going  to  be  dead  tomorrow.  But  I  got 
up  the  next  day  and  I  wasn't  even  sore. 
It  was  the  most  magnificent  day  of  my 
life.  I  was  impressed  by  me."  Now,  she 
claims,  it's  a  struggle  to  get  herself  up 
in  time  to  take  her  grandson  to  school. 
"On  DHEA,  every  morning  I  had  a 
jumping-out-of-bed  feeling.  Oh,  boy, 
do  I  want  that  back!" 

This  is  the  tease  with  DHEA.  Un- 
like melatonin,  DHEA  is  available 
only  by  prescription.  The  U.S.  Food 
and  Drug  Administration  (F.D.A.)  has 
yet  to  approve  it  for  sale  over  the 
counter.  Although  it  is  one  of  the  most 
common  hormones  produced  by  the 
human  body,  there  is  believed  to  be 
only  one  commercial  source  in  the 
world.  Akzo  Nobel,  a  Dutch  company, 
uses  the  barbasco  plant,  which  grows 
in  abundance  in  Mexico  and  China,  as 
its  source  of  DHEA.  After  the  steroid 
molecule  is  chemically  manipulated, 
the  white  DHEA  powder  makes  its 
way  to  a  Chicago  subsidiary,  which  in 
turn  supplies  a  very  limited  number  of 
compounding  pharmacies  in  the  U.S. 
Few  physicians  will  prescribe  it,  al- 
though it  is  not  illegal  to  do  so.  They 
can  obtain  supplies  for  themselves  or 
patients  for  scientific  testing.  Regelson 
is  still  using  a  kilo  of  DHEA  that  he 
ordered  nine  years  ago.  He  says  he 
knows  of  19  other  physicians  in  Rich- 
mond, Virginia,  where  he  lives,  who 
are  prescribing  DHEA  for  chronic  fa- 
tigue syndrome. 

The  accounts  of  Dr.  Yen's  patients 
are  seductive.  But  he  stresses  that  no- 
body really  knows  the  physiological  ef- 
fects of  DHEA  on  the  body.  The  hor- 
mone, even  given  in  huge  doses,  has 
so  far  produced  no  alarming  side  ef- 
fects. Large  dosages  in  women  who 
have  a  tendency  toward  acne  or  excess 
hair  can  exaggerate  these  conditions. 
(Yen  had  two  subjects  report  these 
problems,  which  were  corrected  when 
he  changed  the  dose  or  discontinued 
it.)  But  he  is  the  first  to  point  out  that 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


40%  AIC/V01  (80  PROOF)  100°.  GRAIN  NEUTRAL  SPIRITS 


INC    SAN  FRANCISCO,  CA 


Goes  down  beautifully. 


83 


no  one  knows  what  is  the  proper  dose 
for  replacement,  or  how  men  and 
women  differ  in  utilizing  it,  and  he  is 
studying  both  questions  now.  Individu- 
als, he  says,  vary  tremendously  in  their 
reactions.  He  believes  that  for  a  man 
over  60  who  is  taking  DHEA  (under 
the  supervision  of  a  doctor  who  moni- 
tors the  levels  of  the  hormone  in  his 
blood)  the  right  dose  is  probably  about 
50  milligrams  per  day.  For  women,  he 
stresses,  the  proper  amount  is  a  much 
more  complex  issue,  particularly  for 
those  who  are  already  on  hormone-re- 
placement therapy.  Yen  is  now  experi- 
menting with  DHEA  injections  for 
women. 

Could  there  be  a  hidden  danger? 
The  question  disturbs  serious  research- 
ers like  Dr.  Yen,  because  he  is  still 
deep  in  scientific  inquiry.  Asked  to 
bring  the  DHEA  story  up-to-date,  he 
explained:  "The  most  important  of  the 
human  growth  hormones,  IGF-I  [or  in- 
sulin growth  factor],  can  be  activated 
by  DHEA  replacement  to  almost  the 
level  of  a  25-  to  30-year-old.  And  we 
are  also  finding  out  how  it  activates  the 
immune  system.  Our  data  shows  that 
DHEA  can  restore  the  cancer-fighting 
T-cell  function.  Another  cell  affected  is 
the  N.K.,  or  'natural  killer,'  cell.  These 
are  specialized  lymphocytes  that  carry 
on  surveillance  in  the  blood,  and  when 
they  run  into  a  virus,  they  engulf  it  and 
chew  it  up.  DHEA  also  makes  these 
cells  more  active." 

He  immediately  amended  his  re- 
marks. This  interview  is  the  first  time, 
outside  scientific  circles,  that  Dr.  Yen 
has  discussed  DHEA's  effects  on  the 
immune  system  and  human  growth 
hormone.  He  needs  two  more  years, 
he  insists,  to  clarify  the  bigger  picture 
on  a  broader  sample  of  subjects.  But 
the  genie  is  already  out  of  the  bottle. 
At  a  public  lecture  a  year  ago  spon- 
sored by  the  Sam  and  Rose  Stein  In- 
stitute for  Research  on  Aging  at 
U.C.S.D.,  Dr.  Yen  was  shocked  by  the 
enthusiastic  word  of  mouth  that 
DHEA  was  enjoying.  When  he  asked 
members  of  his  largely  professional 
audience  how  many  were  already  tak- 
ing DHEA,  roughly  half  raised  their 
hands.  Dr.  Yen  has  been  using  it  him- 
self since  then— though  he  does  not 
like  to  admit  it. 

"This  is  not  a  fountain  of  youth,"  he 
has  continually  emphasized.  "It  is  not 
going  to  make  you  live  longer."  But 
perhaps  better— particularly  in  our  later 
years?  "At  this  moment,"  he  replies, 
"we  just  don't  have  enough  scientific 


data  to  support  the  hype  about 
DHEA's  magical  properties  which  are 
being  ballyhooed  in  the  press.  The  data 
on  DHEA  and  immune  function  is 
highly  encouraging,  but  to  translate 
that  into  claims  for  human  health  and 
fighting  disease  is  highly  premature." 

hen  he  leaves  the  impersonal  sterili- 
ty of  his  office  at  the  U.C.S.D. 
medical  center,  a  gentler,  aesthetic 
side  of  Sam  Yen  comes  alive.  Over  a 
bottle  of  Merlot  at  his  home,  a  spiral 
structure  of  Douglas  fir  and  glass  pitched 
on  a  hill  overlooking  the  Pacific,  he 
appears  nothing  like  a  man  ap- 
proaching 70.  The  architecture  , 
of  his  face  is  strong  and  J 
handsome.  His  efferves- 
cent conversation,  rang- 
ing over  a  love  of  art 
and  aviation  to  the  eter- 
nal puzzle  of  sexual 
differences,  suggests 
a  man  who  lives  in 
a  state  of  constant 
cognitive  stimula- 
tion. 

I  ask  him  why  he 
takes  DHEA. 

"I'm  always  in  com- 
mand since  I  was  a  lit- 
tle boy,"  he  says,  telling 
me  the  story  of  his  boy- 
hood in  an  old,  wealthy 
family  in  pre-Communist  Peking. 
As  a  child  he  was  coddled  like  royalty 
and  raised  in  a  compound  with  grass 
tennis  courts,  his  own  horse,  even  his 
own  theater.  His  pampered  existence 
was  shattered  when  the  Japanese  occu- 
pied Peking.  World  war  loomed.  At 
12,  he  ran  away  to  escape  the  occupa- 
tion, and  at  15  he  lied  about  his  age 
and  was  taken  on  by  Pan  Am  as  a  pi- 
lot trainee.  Later  he  became  part  of 
the  Flying  Tigers,  a  legendary  group 
of  volunteer  pilots  led  by  the  Ameri- 
can general  Claire  Chennault.  For  16 
months,  the  teenage  Yen  flew  muni- 
tions between  India  and  China  for  the 
Americans.  It  comes  as  no  surprise 
when,  returning  to  the  subject  of 
DHEA,  he  repeats  with  some  energy, 
"I  like  to  feel  that  command." 

Something  happened  to  him  at  the 
age  of  60,  he  admits  with  a  rueful 
tone.  "I'm  definitely  slower  than  be- 
fore. I'm  struggling  every  day  to  catch 
up."  One  of  the  subtle  effects  of 
DHEA  on  most  people,  he  says,  is  to 
make  them  feel  stronger,  more  in 
charge.  I  ask  the  doctor  if  it  could  be  a 
cure   for  male  menopause.    He   con- 


this 


In  April, 
scientists  discovered 

a  gene  which 

they  believe  affects 

aging  in  humans. 


cedes  that  it  might,  though  indirectly. 
"If  you  induce  metabolic  processes, 
your  well-being  will  be  elevated.  And 
when  well-being  returns,  men  are  more 
likely  to  resume  sexual  activities.  I 
strongly  believe  that,"  Yen  says. 

But  it  takes  more  than  a  bottle  of 
DHEA  to  keep  a  man  vital.  This  is  a 
fact  often  overlooked  in  the  quest  for 
a  magic  bullet  to  fight  aging.  All  these 
scientists  have  work  they  love  and 
unquenchable  curiosity.  Another  part 
of  the  formula  is  a  ready  source  of 
intimacy. 

"I  live  alone,"  Sam  Yen  laments.  Af- 
ter more  than  10  years  as  a  di- 
vorced bachelor,  he  views 
as  one  deficit  that 
hormone  replacement 
cannot  make  up  for 
when  one  is  older. 
"I've  been  dating, 
but  I  haven't  found 
anybody  I  can  im- 
part my  inner  self 
to,  which  is  really 
the  ultimate  com- 
fort. I  miss  that. 
In  fact,  I  think 
about  it  every  day." 
But  in  the  last 
year,  since  Dr.  Yen 
has  been  taking  the 
hormone,  colleagues 
who  have  worked  with 
him  for  years  say  that  he 
seems  happier,  not  as  tense  and  stressed, 
less  the  impenetrable  guru  and  more  a 
real  person.  "I  couldn't  imagine  him  not 
working,"  says  his  co-investigator  Dr. 
Arlene  Morales.  "I  thought  he  would  es- 
sentially die  in  this  job.  Now  I  feel  he's 
ready  to  do  other  things  with  his  time." 
Torn  between  his  role  as  pure  scien- 
tist and  the  possibilities  of  entrepre- 
neurship,  Yen  holds  a  patent  on  the  use 
of  DHEA  as  an  antidepressant  in  aging 
men  and  women.  "Use  patents"  alone 
are  not  worth  much;  it  takes  millions 
of  dollars  in  research  to  satisfy  the 
F.D.A.,  and  drug  companies  aren't  en- 
thusiastic about  investing  when  they 
can  be  jumped  by  other  companies  that 
can  off -label  the  same  product  for  an- 
other use,  say,  protection  against  osteo- 
porosis. Yen  is  currently  negotiating 
with  a  foundation  and  a  pharmaceuti- 
cal company  to  bring  DHEA  to  the 
consumer  market.  But  nobody  expects 
it  to  be  available  over  the  counter  in 
less  than  two  years. 

How  long  would  you  like  to  live?  I 
ask  Dr.  Yen. 

"The  day  I  feel  I'm  no  longer  in  com- 


84 


VANITY  FAIR/JUNE  1996 


n^^wwonwawOT 


ou,ll  look  at  it  and 
see  flashes  of  its  fire. 
Touch  it,  learn  to  know 
its  facets,  every  one.  by  heart. 


__o  take  it  off  would  be  like  leaving 
a  small  part  of  yourself  behind. 


\our  diamond,  extraordinary  and  rare, 


hy  wait? 


diamond  of  a  carat  or  more 
For  you,  for  now.  forever. 


own  one. 


K>nd  of  a  carat  or  more  is  so  rare  that  fewer  than  one  percent  of  women  will  ever 
a  portfolio  of  award-winning  diamom   Bsigns  call  1-800-FOREVER  Dept.  17. 

A  diamond  is  forever, 
De  Beers 


ines.  Ltd.,  Kst.  188«. 


mand  and  I  no  longer  enjoy  my  wine,  I 
don't  want  to  be  lying  around,"  he  an- 
swers matter-of-factly.  "I  live  on  spirit" 

It  is  midafternoon  in  his  laboratory  of- 
fice and  Bill  Haseltine  is  flat  on  his 
back  on  a  hardwood  floor.  With  phones 
unplugged  and  a  pillow  under  his  head, 
he  has  assumed  a  yoga  dead-man's 
pose.  Hardly  a  slacker,  the  51-year-old 
scientific  explorer  is  conserving  energy 
for  the  long  haul.  Haseltine,  who  drinks 
a  gallon  of  water  daily,  takes  his  per- 
sonal anti-aging  conditioning  seriously. 
He  promises  that  in  the  near  future  the 
diseases  of  aging  will  be  predictable  be- 
fore they  occur,  or  at  least  detectable  at 
their  very  earliest  stages.  He  is  a  mes- 
merizing preacher  for  the  new,  gene- 
based  medicine. 

"This  is  a  revolution  akin  to  the  dis- 
covery of  antibiotics,"  he  claims.  "It  will 
save  hundreds  of  millions  of  lives  and 
change  the  destiny  of  big  corporations." 
Haseltine  looks  more  like  an  inter- 
national banker  than  a  researcher, 
dressed  in  tailored  Italian  pinstripes, 
silk  tie,  and  oversize  wire-rims.  There  is 
unmistakable  hubris  behind  his  fixed 
stare.  A  pedigreed  creature  from  a  fam- 
ily of  distinguished  scientists,  he  boasts 
four  Nobel  laureates  among  his  men- 
tors. In  the  early  80s  at  Harvard,  Hasel- 
tine was  involved  in  landmark  work  on 
human  retroviruses  and  discovered  sev- 
eral H.I.V.  genes.  But  he  had  a  brutal 
fight  to  get  tenure  at  the  university. 
"My  sin,"  he  notes  without  false  mod- 
esty, "was  getting  too  much  recognition 
too  quickly— and  outside  the  academy." 
By  the  90s,  Haseltine  had  realized 
that  the  new  hot  scientific  sector  was 
human  genomic  research.  "Like  the  pi- 
oneers who  lit  out  for  Kentucky,"  he 
says,  "I  just  knew  I  had  to  be  there." 
After  one  lunch  with  an  obscure  Na- 
tional Institutes  of  Health  scientist, 
Craig  Venter,  who  had  perfected  an 
unconventional  method  for  accelerat- 
ing gene  research,  Haseltine  saw  where 
he  had  to  go.  "I  set  out  to  build  a  fa- 
cility to  mass-produce  genetic  informa- 
tion," he  says.  SmithKline  Beecham 
was  the  first  corporate  investor  in  the 
new  company,  committing  $125  mil- 
lion to  Human  Genome  Sciences 
(H.G.S.)  in  May  1993.  Now,  just  three 
years  later,  H.G.S.  has  leapt  ahead 
of  the  U.S.  government's  Human 
Genome  Project,  which  won't  be  com- 
pleted for  another  10  years.  Using 
imagination,  large  amounts  of  capital, 
and  an  array  of  robots  and  supercom- 
puters, H.G.S.  is  a  high-tech  detective, 


SKIN-DEEP 

Experts  in  testosterone 

treatments  and 

mini-face-lifts  called 

laserbrasions, 

Dr.  Norman  Orentreich,  73, 

and  his  Fifth  Avenue 

staff  (including  son  David) 

are  dermatologists 

with  eyes  on  the  future 

and  a  battery 

of  celebrity  clients. 


exploring  the  genetic  behav- 
ior that  controls  the  aging  process. 

"In  the  last  few  years,"  Haseltine 
claims,  "our  lab  has  produced  more 
medical-breakthrough  ideas  than  all  the 
academic  institutions,  all  the  govern- 
ment institutions,  and  all  the  hospitals 
in  the  world."  When  Haseltine  and 
Venter  took  H.G.S.  public  in  Decem- 
ber 1993,  the  company  was  valued  at 
$220  million.  Today  it  is  valued  at 
more  than  $750  million. 

All  very  exciting,  but  what  will  this 
biotech  revolution  do  for  the  average 
Joe  who  worries  about  running  up 
stairs  or  dying  in  the  saddle  once  he 
hits  60? 

To  understand  the  company's  work, 
it  is  necessary  to  recall  that  the  body  re- 
places all  its  tissues  every  seven  years. 
When  we  get  small  infections,  injuries, 
even  microscopic  cancer,  this  process  of 
tissue  replacement  wipes  them  out. 
"Knowing  that  your  body  can  maintain 
and  repair  itself,"  Haseltine  begins,  "we 
want  to  discover  how  it  does  that  and 
use  the  same  maintenance-and-repair  kit 
the  body  uses,  as  the  basis  for  a  new  ap- 
proach to  medicine." 

Haseltine's  lab,  just  off  the  Washing- 
ton, D.C.,  beltway,  is  staffed  by  70 
Ph.D.'s  and  M.D.'s.  They  coexist  with 
the  latest  robotic  devices  in  an  environ- 
ment humanized  by  natural  greenery 
and  prints  from  Leonardo  to  Michelan- 
gelo's Creation  of  Adam.   Work  never 


stops  here.  At  seven 
p.m.,  60  computer-driven 
robots  work  side  by  side,  "reading" 
DNA  30  strands  at  a  time.  Monitors 
display  jewel-colored  chains  that  "blink" 
as  they  are  read.  At  the  end  of  this 
information  assembly  line  is  a  glass- 
enclosed  room  where  three  refrigerator- 
size  supercomputers  collect,  crunch,  and 
store  the  cognitive  lode  of  this  extraordi- 
narily futuristic  knowledge  factory. 
Opening  freezers  along  one  wall,  Dr. 
Haseltine  proudly  displays  his  "home- 
made" genes— approximately  900,000  of 
them,  stored  in  miniature  ice-cube  trays. 
Still  somewhat  astonished  himself, 
Haseltine  says,  "We  actually  have  more 
answers  here  than  we'll  ever  be  able  to 
dream  up  questions  for."  Using  his 
small  Macintosh,  he  can  refer  a  ques- 
tion to  the  huge  supercomputers  next 
door.  (Each  contains  about  80,000 
P.C.'s  worth  of  processing  power.) 
"We  now  have  580  different  organ,  tis- 
sue, and  cell  extracts— the  entire  ency- 
clopedia of  the  human  body,"  the  sci- 
entist summarizes.  "We  can  open  it  up 
to  any  chapter  and  look  at  the  adult 
heart,  the  adult  liver,  the  greater  omen- 
tum—organs  you  never  knew  you  had. 
Young  ovary,  old  ovary,"  he  recites  as 
a  technician  flips  through  screens,  "pi- 
tuitary, normal  breast,  tumor  breast, 
prostate  tissue. 

"O.K.,"  he  asks,  "what  intrigues  you?" 
I  ask  about  the  genes  that  cause  os- 


86 


VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


Our  position  on  underage  smoking 
isn't  hard  to  understand. 

At  Philip  Morris  USA,  we  don't  want  minors  to  have  access  to  cigarettes. 
Minors  shouldn't  smoke.  Period. 

The  question  is,  what  are  we  doing  about  it? 

We're  fully  committed  and  working  hard  to  prevent  minors  from  having 
access  to  cigarettes.  That's  the  goal  of  our  Action  Against  Access  program. 

For  instance,  we  don't  distribute  free  sample  cigarettes — or  send  cigarettes 
to  consumers  by  mail.  And  we're  proposing  that  access  to  cigarette  vending 
machines  be  restricted  to  adults. 

We've  joined  with  retailers,  wholesalers,  and  other  major  cigarette 
manufacturers  to  support  an  ambitious  new  program  which  will  provide 
stores  across  the  country  with  signs  and  educational  materials  to  promote 
awareness  of  minimum-age  laws  and  the  importance  of  checking  ED. 

We're  also  supporting  the  passage  of  state  legislation  to  more 
effectively  enforce  minimum-age  laws. 

These  are  just  some  of  the  things  we're  doing  to  help  prevent  underage 
smoking.  We  don't  claim  that  any  one  of  them  is  an  answer  by  itself. 

But  they  all  help  keep  cigarettes  away  from  kids. 

And  that's  the  best  way  to  keep  kids  away  from  cigarettes. 


PHILIP  MORRIS  USA 

Action  Against  Access. 


teoporosis  in  postmenopausal  women. 

"O.K.,"  he  says,  using  his  staff  and 
computers  to  re-enact  a  significant  mo- 
ment that  occurred  10  months  previous- 
ly. "Pull  up  osteoclasts.  Those  are  the 
cells  that  eat  up  bone.  Now  we'll  ask 
for  the  osteoclast  library— all  of  the  indi- 
vidual genes  used  by  that  kind  of  cell." 

A  technician  places  a  computer  or- 
der so  fast  I  barely  notice.  It  translates: 
"Give  me  all  the  genes  in  their  relative 
order  of  abundance  which  are  found  80 
percent  of  the  time  in  that  tissue  and 
no  other." 

The  computer  sorts  through  a  mil- 
lion gene  sequences,  trying  to  identify 
those  associated  with  bone  destruction. 
"If  you  tried  to  do  this  in  a  university," 
Haseltine  observes,  "it  would  take 
many  scientists  many,  many  years." 

Our  answer  comes  up  in  30  seconds. 
Exactly  198  genes  meet  the  question's 
criteria.  One  of  the  genes  never  encoun- 
tered before  is  of  particular  interest. 

Haseltine  asks  the  computer,  "What 
is  the  probable  function  of  this  gene?" 

The  technician  translates;  20  seconds 
pass. 

The  gene,  answers  the  computer, 
seems  to  be  a  new  member  of  the  fami- 
ly of  proteins  which  are  known  to  dis- 
solve cartilage. 


When  that  discovery  was  actually 
made  less  than  a  year  ago,  Haseltine 
and  company  rushed  out  to  patent  the 
gene,  and  SmithKline's  scientists  took 
over  the  task  of  finding  a  drug  that 
would  inhibit  its  ability  to  cause  destruc- 
tion. If  Haseltine  succeeds,  80-year-old 
women  may  be  able  to  walk  tall. 

The  Fifth  Avenue  office  of  Dr.  Nor- 
man Orentreich  is  so  large  it  looks 
more  like  an  airline  frequent-fliers' 
club.  This  is  not  the  standard  skin  doc- 
tor's clinic,  and  Orentreich,  respected 
nationally  for  the  breadth  of  his  biologi- 
cal and  endocrinological  knowledge,  is 
not  the  typical  dermatologist.  His  staff 
of  60  includes  his  son  and  daughter, 
both  physicians.  Many  of  his  patients 
are  actresses  and  models  whose  liveli- 
hoods depend  on  ageless  skin.  He  also 
invented  hair  transplants  and  formulated 
the  therapeutic  products  within  the  Cli- 
nique  line  of  cosmetics.  Luckily,  Oren- 
treich maintains  a  constantly  updated  en- 
cyclopedia of  aging  research  in  his  brain. 
"I'm  73,"  he  says  proudly,  "and  I've 
been  interested  in  aging  research  since 
I  was  13."  Having  thought  about  it  for 
more  than  half  a  century,  he  is  a 
strong  advocate  of  hormone-replace- 
ment therapy— for  both  men  and 
women.  Not  only  has  he  done  studies 
on  DHEA  for  the  National  Institute 
on  Aging,  he  takes  it  himself. 
"When  you  get  to  be  25, 
you  reach  your  peak,"  he 
says.  "Everything  drops 
by  about  one  percent 
a  year.  Fifty  years  lat- 
er—by the  time  you're 
75— you're  half  of 
what  you  were  be- 
fore." 

Orentreich  doesn't 
look  like  half  of  any- 
thing. His  upper 
body  is  strong;  he 
has  a  full  head  of  sil- 
ver hair.  The  skin  of 
his  face  is  two  differ- 
ent colors,  the  tem- 
porary effect  of  a 
laserbrasion  (a  mini- 
face-lift)  performed 


MELATONED 
A  medical  oncologist  at 
the  Medical  College 
of  Virginia,  Dr.  William 
Regelson,  70,  helped 
launch  the  melatonin 
craze.  Now  he's 
writing  on  DHEA. 


by  his  son.  This  energetic  septuagenari- 
an can't  sit  still.  And  the  hormone 
DHEA  isn't  the  only  reason  why. 

"I've  been  taking  topical  testosterone 
myself  for  15  years,"  he  says  with  com- 
plete candor.  "I  was  almost  60.  My 
morning  erections  were  down.  Libido 
was  down.  My  beard  was  getting  soft. 
My  waist  developed  a  girdle  of  fat.  I 
was  feeling  tired  and  down."  The  symp- 
toms were  familiar;  he'd  heard  them 
from  hundreds  of  male  patients  hover- 
ing around  the  age  of  60.  "When  I 
measured  my  blood,"  he  concludes, 
"my  androgen  levels  were  down  around 
300."  All  classic  symptoms  of  male 
menopause. 

Not  only  is  Orentreich  one  among 
the  growing  number  of  doctors  who 
recognize  the  existence  of  male  meno- 
pause, but  he  has  the  historical  context 
to  know  that  the  phenomenon  is  noth- 
ing new.  He  refers  to  a  book  called 
The  Male  Hormone,  by  Paul  de  Kruif, 
in  which  the  author  describes  "a  hor- 
mone hunger"  in  "broken  men"  like 
himself.  "Toward  50,"  wrote  de  Kruif, 
"I  began  to  sweat  too  easily  wood-cut- 
ting. ...  I  began  to  sleep  more  and 
more  fitfully,  waking  up  nights  and 
scared,  but  of  nothing.  I  drank  more 
whiskey  to  counteract  the  tiredness  and 
to  chase  away  causeless  fears."  The 
book  also  describes  one  of  the  first 
"hormone  hunters,"  James  B.  Hamil- 
ton, who  claimed  that  testosterone  re- 
placement could  reverse  degenerative 
arterial  disease  and  prompt  blood  to 
flow  in  legs  and  feet  without  demon- 
strable pulse.  "And  under  the  gentle 
power  of  testosterone  they  felt  ...  an 
upsurge  of  energy  and  a  feeling  of 
hooray  for  tomorrow." 

That  book  was  written  50  years  ago. 

Orentreich  himself  started  experi- 
menting with  testosterone  by  applying 
it  topically  every  day.  Unlike  testos- 
terone injections,  which  are  given  daily 
over  a  three-week  period,  the  daily 
transdermal  method  mimics  the  body's 
circadian  rhythms.  "Today,  I  have  a 
vigorous  beard,"  he  reports.  "My  sexu- 
al appetite  and  competency  is  back  to 
where  it  was  when  I  was  around  40. 
And  testosterone  is  an  antidepressant 
beyond  words.  ...  I  cannot  tell  you," 
he  emphasizes,  "how  many  vital  men 
I've  made." 

The  skin -delivery  method  has  finally 
appeared  on  the  consumer  market  as  a 
transdermal  patch.  Androderm,  dis- 
tributed by  SmithKline  Beecham,  is  a 
first  step  toward  winning  men  over  to 
the  concept  of  (Continued  on  page  93) 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


EQUINOX 
Collection 

The  New  American  Tradition  Sarts  Today 


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(Continued  from  page  88)  hormone- 
replacement  therapy,  which  has  bene- 
fited women  for  50  years.  It  also  pre- 
sents men  with  a  similar  dilemma, 
namely:  will  testosterone  activate  a 
microscopic  cancer  of  the  prostate? 
Orentreich  requires  that  his  patients 
see  their  urologists  for  complete 
prostate  testing  before  he  will  consid- 
er treating  them  with  testosterone. 

Despite  Orentreich's  espousal  of  the 
anti-aging  revolution,  he  is  worried 
about  hormone  overkill.  Like  Sam  Yen, 
he  is  particularly  concerned  that  unsu- 
pervised consumers  are  dosing  them- 
selves without  a  careful  monitoring  of 
hormone  levels  in  the  blood.  The 
biggest  potential  problem,  however,  is 
the  hormone  that  the  popularizers  and 
enthusiasts  appear  to  be  latching  onto 
as  "the  successor  to  DHEA— human 
growth  hormone." 

ally  Simons  is  a  hormone  purvey- 
or—the milkman  of  the  anti-aging 
revolution.  Ten  years  ago  in 
Madison,  Wisconsin,  he  created  one  of 
the  largest  mail-order  pharmacies  in 
the  United  States:  Women's  Interna- 
tional Pharmacy.  The  company  dis- 
penses more  than  a  thousand  prescrip- 
tions a  day.  The  bulk  of  Simons's  busi- 
ness is  compounding  natural  estrogen 
and  progesterone  for  menopausal  wom- 
en. Any  way  they  and  their  doctors  like 
it.  Want  three  different  estrogens  in  a 
single  capsule?  Prefer  a  chaser  of  tes- 
tosterone? A  12.5-milligram  capsule  of 
DHEA?  Whatever  dose  level  or  combi- 
nation they  need,  once  his  clients  ob- 
tain their  prescriptions  and  call  his  800 
number,  Simons  will  make  it  up. 

According  to  his  computer  files, 
some  7,000  physicians  around  the  coun- 
try are  already  writing  prescriptions  for 
DHEA.  If  a  doctor  calls  him  and  de- 
mands all  the  documentation  of  double- 
blind  studies,  Simons  simply  says, 
"Next."  But  when  a  client  calls  up  for 
information,  Wally— as  he  is  known  to 
them— talks  personally  and  quite  knowl- 
edgeably.  His  business  has  doubled  in 
the  last  year  and  a  half. 

"It's  been  awesome,  and  I  don't  see 
any  letup  in  sight."  He  has  opened  an 
outlet  in  Sun  City  West,  Arizona,  and 
will  soon  expand  into  Mexico— a  mar- 
ket which  he  says  is  desperate  for 
DHEA. 

Simons  is  one  of  those  exhaustingly 
upbeat  people  who  leave  you  wonder- 
ing why  you  haven't  got  more  zip. 
Scandinavian,  with  pop-open  blue  eyes 
and  a  great,  fluffy  coxcomb  of  blond- 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


ish  hair  pasted  to  his  forehead,  he  looks 
eternally  boyish.  He  readily  admits  to 
wearing  a  hairpiece;  all  of  his  male  rel- 
atives were  bald  by  the  time  they  were 
25.  He  adds  that  many  died  young— of 
cancer. 

Simons  takes  40  vitamin  and  mineral 
supplements  a  day.  He  keeps  them  in 
neatly  marked  little  sections  in  three 
sewing  boxes.  "I  just  go  in  there  and 
get  them  out  by  the  handful,"  he  tells 
me.  He  intends  to  add  human  growth 
hormone  to  his  regimen  quite  soon. 

"I  don't  want  to  be  Arnold  Schwarze- 
negger," he  claims.  "I  just  want  to  re- 
turn my  growth-hormone  level  to  a 
good,  normal  physiological  level." 

Human  growth  hormone  was  the 
subject  of  a  pioneering  experiment 
which  stunned  the  world  in  1990. 
Growth  hormone  injected  into  men 
over  60  appeared  to  peel  off  about  20 
years  of  aging.  But  the  investigator, 
the  late  Daniel  Rudman  of  the  Med- 
ical College  of  Wisconsin,  warned 
that  it  would  be  dangerous  for  adults 
to  use  the  hormone  on  their  own.  He 
never  took  it  himself.  "He  believed  he 
didn't  need  it,"  I  was  told  by  his  wid- 
ow, Inge  Rudman.  At  the  age  of  67, 
Dr.  Rudman  ran  up  against  his  own 


version  of  Ponce  de  Leon's  arrow.  He 
died  after  brain  surgery. 

"Human  growth  hormone,"  Dr. 
Orentreich  emphasizes,  "may  be  a  dis- 
aster waiting  to  happen!  It  has  an  effect 
on  cancer  cells  which  everybody  ac- 
cepts"—but  which  no  one  really  under- 
stands. He  says  that  "the  benefits  of  hu- 
man growth  hormone  can  be  accom- 
plished with  things  like  DHEA  and 
testosterone,  with  better  control." 

Wally  Simons  doesn't  want  to  hear 
such  cautions.  With  the  learned  posi- 
tivism of  an  Amway  salesman,  a  job  he 
held  for  10  years,  Simons  has  con- 
vinced himself  that  he  is  half  as  old  as 
his  55  years.  He  thinks  of  himself  as 
more  like  25.  "I  do  everything  that  I 
used  to  do  when  I  was  25,  and  more— I 
started  windsurfing  when  I  was  almost 
50!  And  I  Rollerblade.  I  ice-skate.  Of 
course  I'll  be  water-skiing  when  I'm  60 
years  old.  No  problem  at  all." 

I  ask  Simons  the  question  "How 
long  do  you  expect  to  live?" 

"To  120." 

Remembering  an  earlier  conversa- 
tion, I  remind  him,  "You  told  me  not 
long  ago  that  you  wanted  to  reach  135." 

"I  got  to  thinking.  I  don't  want  to 
outlive  my  grandchildren."  □ 


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SPLIT  ENDS:  Right,  after 
Rain  Man's  1988  Oscar  sweep,  Peters  and 
Guber  struck  a  pose.  Below,  in  1975, 
Peters  shared  Streisand's  blond  ambition — 
when  they  weren't  duking  it  out. 


P 


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THE  GOLD  DIGGERS 

Hollywood  was  floored 
by  the  $3.4  billion  hole  left 

in  Sony  by  producers 

Jon  Peters  and  Peter  Guber. 

But,  as  a  new  book  shows, 

the  high-profile  team  that  took 

credit  for  Batman  and 

Rain  Man  had  a  history  of 

financial  hit-and-runs 

f 

BY  KIM  MASTERS  AND 

NANCY  GRIFFIN 


ACT  I 

Meeting  Cute 

s  the  late  70s  faded,  Jon  Pe- 
ters and  Barbra  Streisand 
were  part  of  a  rich,  success- 
ful Malibu  crowd  which  included  Neil 
Bogart,  the  flamboyant  founder  of  Casa- 
blanca Records.  Peters  and  Streisand 
owned  a  house  across  the  street  from  Bo- 
gart's  in  the  Colony,  a  very  private,  guard- 
ed enclave  at  the  edge  of  the  Pacific  where 
stars  including  Cher,  Linda  Ronstadt, 
and  Johnny  Carson  also  owned  homes. 

Peters  was  the  last  of  a  breed:  a  street- 
sawy  showman  who  had  made   it  in 

Excerpted  from  Hit  and  Run:  How  Jon  Peters 
and  Peter  Guber  Took  Sony  for  a  Ride  in 
Hollywood,  by  Nancy  Griffin  and  Kim  Masters, 
to  be  published  in  June  by  Simon  &  Schuster; 
©  1996  by  the  authors. 

94 


show  business  by  breaking  all  the 
rules.  In  the  mid-70s  he  had  ended  his 
reign  as  the  owner  of  the  hottest  hair  sa- 
lon in  Beverly  Hills,  having  moved  from 
serving  as  Streisand's  hairdresser  and 
lover  to  working  as  her  manager  and 
producing  partner.  "In  those  days, 
people  thought  Jon  was  a  gigolo," 
says  his  friend  Geraldo  Rivera. 

Peters  had  clawed  his  way  up.  His 
mother  was  born  into  an  Italian  hair- 
dressing  clan,  the  Paganos.  His  father, 
Jack  Peters,  was  three-quarters  Chero- 
kee and  owned  a  diner  in  Hollywood. 
One  afternoon  when  Peters  was  10,  his 
dad  drove  home  from  work  in  his  Stude- 
baker,  walked  in  the  front  door,  slumped 
down  in  his  favorite  chair,  and  died  of  a 
heart  attack.  "It  was  like  my  world  kind 
of  ended,"  says  Peters. 

He  dropped  out  of  school  in  the  sev- 
enth grade  and  went  into  the  family 
business.  While  still  a  teenager,  he  dyed 
prostitutes'  pubic  hair  to  match  their 
poodles  in  New  York  City  and  later  styled 


wealthy  heiresses  in 
Philadelphia.  After  returning  to 
Los  Angeles,  he  opened  his  own  salons 
and  found  entree  into  the  entertainment 
world  when  he  married  the  young  ac- 
tress Lesley  Ann  Warren.  They  divorced 
after  he  met  Streisand. 

His  proving  ground  was  co-producing 
A  Star  Is  Born  featuring  Streisand,  who 
starred  in  the  smash  Warner  Bros,  mu- 
sical with  Kris  Kristofferson.  Peters 
was  so  invested  in  the  movie,  which  he 
considered  the  story  of  his  life  with 
Streisand,  that  he  briefly  considered 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


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But  there  was  a  catch  —  a  3,000  mile  catch. 

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casting  himself  as  his 
lady's  leading  man— an 
idea  scotched  only  af- 
ter he  warbled  a  pitiful 
rendition  of  Don't  Be 
Cruel  for  Jerry  Schatz- 
berg,  the  director 
then  attached  to  the 
project.  "I  was  off- 
key  the  entire  time 
admits  Peters.  "1  figured, 
'Fuck  it,  I'll  try  any 
thing.  ..."  Whatever  sticks 
I'll  do."  When  Peters  told  War- 
ner's executive  Frank  Wells  that 
he  had  decided  not  to  act  in  the  film, 
"Frank  gave  me  a  kiss  and  said, 
Thank  God!  Thank  God!'" 

As  a  novice  producer,  however,  Pe- 
ters scored  some  remarkable  coups.  He 
had  gotten  Warner's  to  allow  Streisand 
to  film  and  record  a  live  concert  before 
a  crowd  of  60,000  extras  in  Tempe,  Ari- 
zona, instead  of  lip-synching  and  faking 
the  concert  with  footage  from  Wood- 
stock. Most  important,  he  had  spear- 
headed the  film's  landmark  marketing 
campaign,  featuring  a  Francesco  Scavul- 
lo  photo  of  Streisand  and  Kristofferson 
in  a  semi-nude  embrace.  "Jon  wanted  to 
push  the  envelope  at  every  corner,"  re- 

96 


"Barbra  told  me 
that  before  I  knew  her 

Peter  Guber  would 

call  and  talk  dirty  to  her 

on  the  phone/' 

says  Jon  Peters. 


calls  one  Warner's  executive. 
A  Star  Is  Born  was  the 
prototypical  Jon  Peters  proj- 
ect, a  volatile  production 
punctuated  by  curses,  vio- 
lent arguments,  numerous 
firings,  and  explosive  bat- 
tles with  director  Frank 
Pierson  and  Streisand.  At 
the  end  of  a  tense  shoot- 
ing day  in  which  Strei- 
sand filmed  a  hot-tub 
love  scene  with  Kristofferson,  the 
jealous  Peters  chased  his  girlfriend 
around  the  Warner's  lot  until  she 
found  a  ride  home.  During  another 
quarrel,  while  the  two  were  driving 
to  a  meeting,  Peters— with  his  left 
hand  on  the  wheel— reached  over  and 
grabbed  his  lover,  ripping  her  blouse 
off.  She  swung  her  leg  up  and  pressed 
a  stilettoed  heel  into 
his  neck  as  he  sped 
down  the  Hollywood 
Freeway,  struggling  to 
maintain  control.  The 
film  that  emerged 
from  this  ferment 
was  panned  by  crit- 
ics but  remains  the 
biggest  hit  of  Strei- 
sand's career.  It 
grossed  more  than 
$90  million. 
Having  defied  the 
odds,  Peters  was  weigh- 
ing his  next  move.  On 
the  strength  of  his  rela- 
tionship with  Streisand, 
he  had  made  a  production  deal  with  Ori- 
on Pictures;  the  three-picture  pact  stipu- 
lated that  she  was  to  appear  in  at  least 
one  of  his  films.  Streisand  was  obsessed 
with  "Yentl,  the  Yeshiva  Boy,"  by  Isaac 
Bashevis  Singer,  the  story  of  a  Jewish 
girl  in  Poland  who  poses  as  a  boy  in  or- 
der to  study  the  Talmud.  Peters  loathed 
the  project— a  period  piece  with  distinct- 
ly nonrock  music.  He  tried  to  bully  her 
out  of  making  the  film.  "Barbra,  you 
have  one  year  left  before  you  turn  into 
an  old  bag,"  he  yelled  one  night  in  front 
of  friends.  She  started  to  cry,  but  pro- 
ceeded to  strike  out  on  her  own.  The 
new  producer  needed  a  new  alliance. 


BORN  STARS:  From  near  left,  Guber  in  1979 
with  partner  Neil  Bogart,  whom  he  replaced  with 
Jon  Peters;  Peters  gets  snippy  with 
Kris  Kristofferson  during  A  Star  Is  Born  filming, 
where  a  Streisand  concert  drew  60,000. 


Peters  sometimes  strolled  the  beach 
with  Neil  Bogart,  who  occasionally 
started  their  walks  with  a  couple  of 
quaaludes.  A  hard-living  former  New 
Yorker  whose  Rolls-Royce  bore  the  li- 
cense PS80  Bronx,  Bogart  had  made  his 
fortune  by  virtually  inventing  bubblegum 
music.  After  that  genre  faded,  he  started 
Casablanca  Records,  hitting  pay  dirt  with 
a  former  gospel  singer  living  in  Germany 
named  Donna  Summer.  Soon  he  was 
looking  to  buy  himself  a  piece  of  the  film 
industry.  As  luck  would  have  it,  his  friend 
Peter  Guber  was  just  then  beginning  to 
make  a  name  for  himself  as  a  producer. 

Guber  was  a  fast-talking,  highly  edu- 
cated lawyer  from  Boston  who  had  risen 
swiftly  in  the  Columbia  Pictures  hierar- 
chy. Dubbed  "the  Kid"  by  his  mentor, 
producer  Ray  Stark,  Guber  had  been 
made  head  of  production  by  the  age  of 
29.  Now  an  independent  producer,  he 
had  a  film  called  Tlie  Deep,  starring 
Jacqueline  Bisset,  in  production.  The  pic- 
ture would  be  a  $100  million  hit,  though 
Bogart  couldn't  have  known  that  when 
he  merged  Casablanca  with  Guber's  pro- 
duction company,  FilmWorks,  in  No- 
vember 1976.  To  some  observers,  it 
seemed  that  Bogart  hadn't  gotten  much  of 
a  bargain.  "What  Neil  wanted  more  than 
anything  was  to  get  into  the  movie  busi- 
ness and  he  was  willing  to  pay  anything," 
says  producer  Rob  Cohen,  who  made 
Duink  God  It 's  Friday  at  Casablanca. 

Guber  and  Bogart  soon  found  them- 
selves a  new,  deep-pocketed  partner.  Poly- 
Gram  International,  a  straitlaced  German - 
Dutch  joint  venture,  wanted  to  branch 
out  from  classical  music.  At  a  glance, 
PolyGram  seemed  to  be  getting  a  good 
deal  when  it  paid  between  $10  million 
and  $15  million  for  nearly  half  of  Casa- 
blanca Records  and  FilmWorks  in  1977. 

At  the  Casablanca  offices  on  Sunset 
Boulevard,  twin  stuffed  camels  greet- 
ed visitors  in  the  lobby.  "We  had  this 
interior  decorator  spending  a  million  dol- 
lars a  year  on  furniture,"  says  Jeff  Wald, 
who  was  Donna  Summer's  manager. 
"You  walked  into  Casablanca  and  the 
size  of  the  speakers  just  assaulted  your 
senses,  and  there  was  cocaine  on  people's 
desks.  And  by  the  time  we  got  down  to 
business,  it  was  almost  irrelevant." 

But  business  was  never  irrelevant  to 
Guber,  who  kept  his  distance  from  these 
high  jinks.  Always  cautious  and  com- 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


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paratively  conservative,  he  nevertheless 
seemed  entirely  at  home  with  Bogart's 
nonpharmaceutical  excesses  and  did 
nothing  to  check  the  company's  profliga- 
cy. After  scoring  two  box-office  hits  with 
successful  sound  tracks— T.G.I. F.  and 
Midnight  Express- he  let  film  production 
languish.  As  Casablanca  Records  hemor- 
rhaged money,  Bogart's  drug  abuse  be- 
came more  of  an  issue.  By  early  1980, 
PolyGram  had  decided  that  Bogart  had 
to  go.  It  was  an  agonizing  moment  for 
Guber.  He  adored  Bogart.  But  he  made 
the  sensible  decision  and  dumped  his 
partner.  PolyGram  agreed  to  invest  $100 
million  to  finance  Guber's  new  film  com- 
pany, PolyGram  Pictures. 

Although  better  acquainted  with  Bo- 
gart, Peters  naturally  had  crossed  paths 
with  Guber.  Streisand  had  told 
him  that  Guber  had  tried 
to  cultivate  a  relationship 
with  her  when  he  was 
a  junior  executive  at 
Columbia,  where  she 
made    Funny    Girl. 
"Barbra  told  me  that 
before  I  knew  her  Pe- 
ter would  call  her  late 
at  night  and  talk  dirty 
to  her  on  the  phone," 
Peters   says.    (Guber's    ' 
habit    of    speaking    to 
women,  even  in  business 
meetings,    in    the    most 
graphic    sexual    terms 
would  persist  in  the  years 
ahead.)  When  Peters  linked 


up  with  Streisand,  he  approached  Guber, 
then  still  at  Columbia,  and  pitched  his 
first  solo  production,  Tlie  Eyes  of  Laura 
Mars.  Guber  dismissed  him.  "Jon  Peters 
is  a  hairdresser"  he  declared. 

But  now  Guber  needed  to  replace  Bo- 
gart with  another  partner  whose  per- 
sonality would  energize  and  camouflage 
him.  Meanwhile,  as  Peters  pondered  his 
future  without  Streisand,  he  and  Bo- 
gart's pal  became  better  acquainted  at 
parties  held  at  Guber's  house  on  Brown- 
wood  Place  in  Bel  Air.  Friends  noticed 
the  two  men  circling  each  other  in  a 
kind  of  courtship.  "You  could  see  them 
falling  in  love,  saying  to  each  other, 
Aren't  we  incredibly  rich  and  entrepre- 
neurial?' "  says  one  guest.  Guber's  wife, 
Lynda,  encouraged  it.  She  wanted  her 
husband  to  find  someone  to  help  him 
scale  the  heights  of  Hollywood. 


"Guber  would  weave 

a  web  around  these  guys 

and  convince 

them  that  everything 

was  O.K.... 
He  was  a  wonderful 
illusionist."    i 


PEOPLE  WHO  NEED  PEOPLE:  During  the  filming 
of  The  Main  Event,  Streisand  and  Peters  posed  with 
Streisand's  agent  Sue  Mengers,  far  left, 
and  Columbia  Records  executive  Walter  Vetnikoff, 
a  major  operative  in  the  Sony  deal. 


In  May  1980,  Jon 
Peters,  Peter  Gu- 
ber, and  Neil 
Bogart  formed 
Boardwalk,  a  new 
company.  Bogart 
would  do  music 
and  Peters  would 
make  movies.  Guber 
would  lend  his  name 
while  remaining  chief 
executive  at  PolyGram 
Pictures.  He  could  as- 
suage his  guilt  over  break- 
ing up  with  Bogart,  who 
had  been  diagnosed  with 
cancer,  while  creating  an  es- 
cape hatch  from  PolyGram. 
Guber  started  to  spend 
PolyGram's  money  with 
abandon,  while  constantly 
seeking  to  sweeten  his 
deal.  "There  was  a  per- 
manent renegotiation  of 
his  contract  or  his  perks 
or  whatever  that  drove 
us  crazy,"  says  Eckart 
Haas,  PolyGram's  for- 
mer C.E.O.  "There  was 
hardly  any  particular 
business  deal  which 
didn't  somehow  result 
in  a  discussion  of  his 
own  contract."  Gu- 
ber's producing  fee 
soared  above  the  indus- 
try norm;  reportedly  he  also  received  a 
high  percentage  of  the  box-office  gross. 

An  executive  at  Universal,  which  dis- 
tributed PolyGram  films,  sums  up  the 
Guber  modus  operandi:  "Find  a  compa- 
ny, move  in,  make  it  his  own,  and  move 


out.  ...  He  departs,  having  used  that 
company  to  make  movies  with  his  name 
on  them."  Yet  Guber  persuaded  Poly- 
Gram that  he  felt  a  responsibility  to  its 
business.  "Peter  would  weave  a  web 
around  these  guys  and  convince  them 
that  everything  was  O.K.,  even  when 
they  were  looking  at  the  numbers,  see- 
ing that  it  wasn't,"  says  an  executive  for- 
merly affiliated  with  Guber.  "He  was  a 
wonderful  illusionist."  (Guber  has  re- 
peatedly declined  to  be  interviewed.) 

As  it  turned  out,  Guber  didn't  flee  to 
Boardwalk;  instead,  Peters  joined 
PolyGram.  "Guber  forced  Jon  into 
the  picture,"  says  PolyGram's  Haas.  "Pe- 
ter said,  'Either  you  agree  that  he  comes 
in  or  I  commit  suicide,  jump  out  the  win- 
dow,' or  whatever.  It  was  a  power  sell." 
Guber  gave  his  new  partner  half  of  his 
50  percent  stake  in  PolyGram's  film 
company  and  jettisoned  Boardwalk.  On 
his  own  again,  Bogart  managed  to  score 
one  last  hit,  Joan  Jett's  "I  Love  Rock  'n' 
Roll,"  before  he  died  in  May  1982. 

Guber  and  Peters  soon  became  so 
close  that  Lynda  began  to  feel  left  out. 
At  PolyGram  "they  sat  together  at  a 
long  glass  desk,  working  the  phones," 
says  Hillary  Ripps,  Peters's  former  assis- 
tant. "They  really  liked  to  be  around 
each  other."  Some  sensed  a  homoerotic 
current  in  their  relationship.  (Peters  re- 
calls that  years  later  in  a  joint  therapy 
session  Guber  would  declare,  "I  love 
you.  No,  I  don't  love  you— I  feel  like  I'm 
in  love  with  you.") 

But  the  rush  was  not  about  sex. 
"Money  is  their  drug,"  says  an  associ- 
ate. "Money  and  power."  In  the  movie 
business,  neither  could  be  obtained  with- 
out muscle— which  Peters  could  supply 
for  both  of  them.  Says  Rob  Cohen, 
"Jon  completed  Peter.  If  you  can  have 
your  alter  ego  destroy  everything  in 
your  path  so  that  you  can  walk  in  on 
rose  petals,  that's  a  great  thing." 

Together,  Guber  and  Peters  shoved  a 
half-dozen  projects  into  the  PolyGram 
pipeline.  Because  they  split  a  fee  for 
every  movie  produced,  it  was  in  their  in- 
terest to  start  as  many  movies  as  possible. 

"It  doesn't  matter  if  the  movies  make 
any  money,"  Peters  told  his  former  assis- 
tant Laura  Ziskin.  "We  make  a  fortune." 

Peters  became  the  dominant  force,  as- 
suming the  bad-cop  role  for  the  noncon- 
frontational  Guber.  When  creative  execu- 
tive Barry  Beckerman  dared  to  contra- 
dict Guber,  Peters  flew  to  the  rescue. 
"You  can't  talk  to  my  partner  that 
way!"  he  shouted.  The  next  day,  Becker- 
man  found  a  dozen  bottles  of  organic 


VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


Omega  Constellation. 

Self-winding  chronometer 
n  18K  gold  and  steel. 

Swiss  made  since  1848. 


ERNIE  ELS'  CHOICE 

Golf-wonder  Ernie  Els  is  one  of  the  top  young  talents  in 
today's  game  thanks  to  the  skill  of  his  technique  and  the 
regularity  of  his  swing.  Qualities  he  finds  in  his  Omega, 
whether  on  the  golf  course  or  in  his  daily  life.  "Trust  your 
judgement,  trust  Omega"  -  Ernie  Els. 


eiaun. 


THE  OAKS  SHOPPING  CENTER        FASHION  SQUARE  SHERMAN  OAKS       WESTLAKE  VILLAGE 
(805)495-1425  (818)783-3960  (805)373-1002 


shampoo  on  his  desk— a  peace  offering. 

But  war  was  flaring  on  another  front. 
"We  had  a  string  of  pictures  that  fell 
on  their  ass,"  says  former  PolyGram 
Pictures  C.O.O.  Gordon  Stulberg.  Early 
releases  bombed— including  King  of  the 
Mountain,  with  Harry  Hamlin,  and 
Endless  Love,  starring  Brooke 
Shields.  In  July  1981,  Gu 
ber  and  Peters  at- 
tempted some  spin. 
"We're  just  trying  to 
have  some  fun  and 
make  the  days  enjoy- 
able," Guber  blithely 
told  the  Los  Angeles 
Times.  "We've  made 
people  hundreds  of 
millions  of  dollars 
in  revenue." 

PolyGram  knew 
otherwise.  The  Guber 
Peters  slate  was  awash  in 
red  ink.  An  American  Were- 
wolf in  London  and  Missing  would  be- 
come modest  successes,  but  they  could 
not  compensate  for  the  other  pictures  or 
the  fact  that  Guber  sold  Flashdance  to 
Paramount,  letting  a  blockbuster  slip 
away.  PolyGram  had  had  enough.  In 
January  1982,  the  company  pulled  the 
plug,  having  reportedly  poured  $100  mil- 
lion into  its  film  division. 

Guber  and  Peters  established  their 
own  company  and  briefly  alighted  at 
Universal,  but  it  didn't  last.  That  studio's 
new  chief,  Frank  Price,  was  wise  to  their 
ways.  "This  was  a  hostile  environment," 
observes  a  former  Universal  executive. 
"It  was  time  to  find  a  new  host  body." 

Luckily,  in  1982,  Barry  Beckerman 
had  taken  a  script  for  a  film  version  of 
Batman  over  to  Warner  Bros.,  where 
Jon  Peters  had  old  friends.  "Not  only 
do  they  want  Batman,"  Beckerman  told 
Guber  and  Peters,  "they  want  every- 
thing else  we  have,  too." 


ACT  II 

Playing  the  Game 

After  PolyGram,  Peter  Guber's  mar- 
riage hit  a  rough  patch  and  the  pro- 
ducer rented  a  house  by  himself  in 
the  Colony.  "He  was  a  mess  emotional- 
ly." says  a  friend.  The  couple  recon- 
ciled—but only  after  Guber  paid  a  visit 
to  his  lawyer.  "He  was  told  he  would 
have  to  give  her  half  his  assets,"  says  a 
source  who  was  in  the  room  when  Gu- 
ber returned.  "He  called  up  Lynda  and 
said.  Hi,  honey.  I'm  coming  home.'" 
After  his  split  with  Streisand,  Jon 


In  a  therapy 

session  with  Peters, 

Guber  declared, 

"I  don't  love  you- 

I  feel  like  I'm  in  love 

with  you." 


Peters  romanced  Christine  Forsyth,  a 
blonde  interior  designer,  whom  he  would 
marry.  But  they  kept  breaking  up,  and 
Peters— who  had  started  dating  at  age 
10— was  rarely  lonely.  Says  producer  Polly 
Piatt,  "Somehow  in  childhood,  Jon's  sur- 
vival must  have  depended  on  the  love  of 
women,  and  did  he  ever 
learn  how  to  get  it."  The 
pattern  always  seemed 
the  same:  he  set  his 
sights  and  overwhelmed 
his  quarry,  sending 
huge  flower  arrange- 
ments and  starting  his 
beloved  on  a  regime 
of  buttocks  exercises. 
"Every  woman,"  Pe- 
ters advised,  "needs 
help  there." 
Episodes  of  ballistic 
anger  continued.  In  1985, 
two  landscapers  went  to 
Peters's  Aspen  ranch  to  col- 
lect $110  which  they  were  owed.  "Peters 
came  out  wearing  a  bathrobe  and  carry- 
ing an  old-style,  pearl-handled  six-shoot- 
er," says  police  officer  Tom  Stephenson. 
"He  proceeded  to  point  it  at  them, 
yelling  and  screaming."  The  men  sued 
for  $22  million,  saying  that  Peters  had 
squeezed  the  trigger  four  times.  He  set- 
tled out  of  court,  reportedly  for  $60,000. 
At  Warner's,  Peters  and  Guber  set  up 
shop  in  Building  66  on  the  Burbank  lot, 
where  Jon's  pal  Terry  Semel,  Warner's 
president  and  C.O.O.,  occupied  a  corner 
office.  Their  first  project  at  Warner's  was 
Vision  Quest,  with  Matthew  Modine.  As 
he  had  learned  to  do  on  A  Star  Is  Born, 
Peters  focused  on  producing  a  hit  sound 
track.  He  and  music  producer  Phil  Ra- 
mone  had  heard  about  a  virtually  un- 
known singer-dancer  from  New  York 
who  had  signed  a  deal  with  Sire  Rec- 
ords, a  Warner's  subsidiary.  Ramone  in- 
vited the  singer,  named  Madonna,  to 
Streisand's  house  on  Carolwood  Drive  in 
Beverly  Hills.  She  played  some  of  her 
European  videos.  The  group  was  im- 
pressed, and  Madonna  recorded  "Crazy 
for  You"  for  Vision  Quest. 

As  it  happened,  the  movie's  release 
coincided  with  the  debut  of  Madonna's 
Like  a  Virgin  album.  Warner  Records 
chief  Mo  Ostin  didn't  want  "Crazy  for 
You"  released  as  a  single;  it  would  dis- 
tract attention  from  the  album.  Ostin 
asked  Warner's  C.E.O.  Bob  Daly  to  pull 
the  Madonna  track.  Daly  summoned 
Peters  and  Guber  and  relayed  the  news. 
As  Guber  watched  in  horror,  Peters 
leapt  on  top  of  Daly's  desk— and  began 
jumping  up  and  down  in  protest.  Daly 


ran  from  the  room.  But  Warner's  even- 
tually caved,  and  such  incidents  only  en- 
larged the  Peters  legend. 

The  team  flourished.  "A  lot  of  people 
get  paralyzed  in  the  decision -making 
process,"  says  Roger  Birnbaum,  who  was 
president  of  the  Guber-Peters  company 
in  1986.  "They  didn't."  Guber  stayed  in 
the  office  working  the  phones.  He  grew  a 
ponytail  and  cut  a  slick  figure  in  his  de- 
signer suits  and  white  socks  with  soft 
loafers.  He  made  endless  lists  on  yellow 
legal  pads  and  spouted  maxims.  "The 
perception  of  power"  is  what  matters,  he 
said.  "People  move  toward  power." 

Peters  worked  at  home,  taking  meet- 
ings in  Bermuda  shorts  by  his  pool.  Says 
screenwriter  Andrew  Smith,  "When  he 
picks  up  the  phone,  it's  like  some  guy 
from  the  neighborhood— you  know,  it's 
'Hey,  sweetie,  how  ya  doooo-in?'  That's 
how  he  talks.  There's  a  sweetness  to 
him.  He's  always  doing  that  'heeeey,' 
and  he's  pinching  and  kissing." 

Too  voracious  to  settle  for  being  mere- 
ly producers,  Guber  and  Peters  were  de- 
termined to  have  their  own  studio  one 
day.  Generally,  however,  the  less  Guber 
and  Peters  had  to  do  with  the  actual  mak- 
ing of  their  movies,  the  more  they  liked  it. 
They  hired  executives  to  oversee  script  de- 
velopment and  outside  producers  to  make 
the  movies.  Adept  at  marketing,  they  were 
not  so  much  filmmakers  as  entrepreneurs 
who  owned  a  film-producing  company. 
"They  were  never  on  the  set,  they  were 
never  in  the  cutting  room,"  says  Steven 
Spielberg,  director  of  Tlte  Color  Purple,  a 
film  for  which  Guber  and  Peters  re- 
ceived executive-producer  credits— basi- 
cally for  buying  the  rights  to  the  novel. 

Peters  and  Guber  fueled  their  rise  at 
Warner's  by  stroking  executives  who 
helped  them  advance  and  neutraliz- 
ing those  who  didn't.  Mark  Rosenberg, 
a  former  left-wing  activist,  had  been 
named  president  of  production  in  July 
1983,  as  Guber  and  Peters  arrived.  Intel- 
lectual by  Hollywood  standards,  he  had 
pushed  serious  projects  such  as  The 
Killing  Fields,  which  dealt  with  the  Khmer 
Rouge's  genocidal  reign  in  Cambodia. 

Other  executives  had  far  more  patience 
for  Peters  and  Guber,  namely  Jon's  for- 
mer aide  Mark  Canton,  a  senior  vice 
president  who  wanted  Rosenberg's  job. 
Unlike  Rosenberg,  Canton  wasn't  con- 
cerned about  killing  fields.  A  sign  on  his 
door  announced  that  a  "Friend  of  Come- 
dy" dwelled  therein.  Some  observers  add- 
ed the  phrase  "Enemy  of  Intelligence" 
when  they  described  the  sign  to  friends. 
The  engagement  party  Peters  threw 


100 


VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


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at  his  Beverly  Hills  mansion  for  Can- 
ton and  his  fiancee,  Wendy  Finerman, 
in  1985  was  surreal.  "Like  Tara  in  the 
middle  of  Beverly  Hills,"  recalled  one 
invitee.  A  chimpanzee  in  a  Warner's 
T-shirt  was  perched  on  a  tree  branch. 
An  orangutan  sat  in  a  wheelchair.  Then 
a  portentous  incident  occurred.  Sur- 
rounded by  a  crowd  of  people,  includ- 
ing Daly  and  Semel,  who  were  sipping 
wine  around  the  pool,  Mark  Rosen- 
berg fell  into  the  water.  It  was  especial- 
ly embarrassing  for  Rosenberg,  who 
was  overweight. 

"'Mark  fell  in  the  pool!  Mark  fell  in 
the  pool!"  cried  Peters  and  Canton, 
jumping  up  and  down.  "For  the  next  sev- 
eral days,  everyone  talked  about  it,"  says 
another  source.  "It  was  really  revolting." 
But  on  September  25,  1985,  the  trade  pa- 


the  interior  designer  of  the  S.S.  France, 
decorated  it  with  Picasso  ceramics  and 
George  Hurrell  portraits.  A  hot  tub  was 
built  on  the  ship's  fantail.  At  the  same 
time,  the  motor  sailer  was  outfitted  to 
serve  as  a  high-tech  filmmaking  platform. 

Guber  used  The  Oz  for  family-vaca- 
tion cruises  in  the  Caribbean  and  to 
Hawaii,  but  also  made  the  boat  earn  its 
keep.  "We  did  a  fair  amount  of  corpo- 
rate entertaining,"  says  captain  John  Bill. 
In  L.A.,  Tlie  Oz  was  docked  at  Marina 
Del  Rey,  and  it  was  rented  out  for  pri- 
vate charters  and  to  film  and  commercial 
productions.  By  registering  Tlie  Oz  as  a 
charter  vehicle,  Guber  could  write  off 
renovations  and  operating  costs. 

In  1984,  Guber  and  Peters  launched 
a  television  division,  team- 


1984  to  1985.  Guber  would  fly  in  occa- 
sionally to  meet  Weatherly  and  crew, 
joining  them  in  La  Paz  for  a  Mexican 
episode  and  in  Cuba,  where  he  was  re- 
ceived by  Castro. 

"Ocean  Quest  cost  a  fortune,"  admits 
Tom  Tannenbaum.  who  says  he  wasn't 
sure  that  Sentry  Insurance  understood 
the  kind  of  deficits  that  were  involved  in 


HITS  AND  RUNS:  Guber  and  Peters  made 

Gorillas  in  the  Mist  (with  Sigourney  Weaver), 

The  Witches  of  Eastwich  (with  Cher, 

Susan  Sarandon,  and  Michelle  Pfeiffer),  Rain  Man 

(with  Dustin  Hoffman  and  Tom  Cruise), 

and  Batman  (where  Peters  teamed  with 

Mark  Canton  and  Jack  Nicholson). 


pers  announced  Warner  Bros.'  promo- 
tion of  Mark  Canton  to  president  of 
worldwide  theatrical  production.  Rosen- 
berg died  in  1992. 

Guber  and  Peters,  however,  were  up  to 
their  old  tricks,  honing  the  "hit  and  run" 
financial  practices  which  had  served  them 
so  well  at  PolyGram.  Guber,  particularly, 
was  forever  on  the  lookout  to  save  mon- 
ey—for himself.  By  the  mid-80s,  he  and 
Peters  had  deals  all  over  town.  (They  had 
a  housekeeping  deal  with  Warner's  for 
Batman  and  other  projects,  but  were  free 
to  develop  ideas  elsewhere.)  Although 
such  arrangements  are  routinely  exploited 
by  producers,  Guber  turned  it  into  an 
art  form.  He  asked  his  secretary  to  tell  a 
printer  that  he  would  not  pay  for  the  pro- 
grams for  his  daughter's  Bas  Mitzvah  un- 
til the  bill  was  resubmitted  with  the  nota- 
tion "for  scripts  printed."  First-class  plane 
tickets  were  billed  to  more  than  one  stu- 
dio. But  by  far  his  most  ingenious  scheme 
involved  the  financing  of  his  boat. 

In  1982,  Guberhad  purchased  an  80- 
foot  steel  ketch,  made  in  New  Zealand, 
which  he  transformed  into  a  luxury 
yacht  and  filmmaking  vessel.  No  expense 
was  spared  on  The  Oz.  Angelo  Donghia, 


ing  up  with  Center- 
point,   a   company 
headed  by  Tom  Tan- 
nenbaum.   He    had 
raised  $100  million  from 
Wisconsin-based  Sentry 
Insurance,  whose  chief, 
Bill  Ellis,  wanted  to  get 
into  Hollywood. 

For  Centerpoint,  the  Guber-Peters 
company  produced  an  NBC  series  called 
Dreams,  which  was  quickly  canceled. 
They  also  made  a  TV  movie  starring 
Mr.  T  that  went  $1  million  over  budget, 
an  extraordinary  overrun.  Then  Guber 
came  up  with  Ocean  Quest,  a  series 
which  amounted  to  filming  blonde  "per- 
sonality" Shawn  Weatherly  in  a  bikini 
sailing  around  the  world  on  The  Oz. 

Guber  sold  his  friend  Brandon  Tar- 
tikoff,  then  president  of  NBC,  six 
hours  of  Ocean  Quest  for  a  $600,000- 
an-hour  licensing  fee.  The  going  rate 
was  $800,000;  it  was  a  bargain  for  the 
powerful  Tartikoff.  Ocean  Quest,  how- 
ever, cost  $875,000  per  episode,  and 
Centerpoint  had  to  kick  in  the  addition- 
al $275,000  per  show. 

The  Oz  was  chartered  by  Center- 
point  for  the  better  part  of  the  year 
that  the  series  was  being  filmed,  from 


I  I[i4 1  ■VTiTi  iTiTl  1  _ 

financing  the  pro- 
gram. "They  were 
an  insurance  com- 
pany from  Wis- 
consin," he  says. 

Ocean  Quest  pre- 
miered on  NBC  in 
September  1985  and 
ultimately  put  Center- 
point    out    of  business. 
Sentry  Insurance  lost  mil- 
lions on  its  investment.  Oth- 
ers fared  better.  "Peter  told  me  Guber- 
Peters  made  a  lot  of  money  in  Center- 
point,"  says  Tannenbaum.  In  1987,  Gu- 
ber sold  The  Oz  for  $1  million. 


ACT  III 

Witches 

As  they  climbed  the  ladder  of  success, 
Guber  and  Peters  developed  a  repu- 
tation for  going  to  any  length  to  get 
material  they  wanted,  even  if  it  meant 
grabbing  properties  from  others. 

Filmmaker  Rob  Cohen  first  heard 
about  The  Witches  of  Eastwick  during  a 
1983  dinner  with  his  friend  Don  Devlin, 
who  thought  Jack  Nicholson  might  be  in- 
terested in  starring  in  a  film  based  on  the 
John  Updike  novel.  Cohen  came  up  with 
an  idea  for  adapting  the  book  into  a  film. 


VANITY  FAIR  /JUNE  1996 


ID! 


and  pitched  it  to  Guber  at  a 
breakfast  meeting.  "I  love 
witches,"  Guber  declared. 
He  sent  Cohen  to  Mark  Can- 
ton at  Warner's,  who  was 
also  a  booster.  Then  Cohen 
called    the    agent    handling  '■* 

film  rights,  hoping  to  lock 
up  the  property.  He  was  in- 
formed that  Guber  had  just  I 
optioned  the  book  for  $50,000. 

"They  bought  the  book  out  from  un- 
der me,"  says  Cohen.  "I  went  over  to 
Guber's  office  and  he  presented  a  deal  to 
us  which  was  essentially  a  line  producer's 
deal."  Guber  and  Peters  would  get  a  pro- 
ducing fee  of  as  much  as  $750,000,  while 
Cohen  and  Devlin  would  split  $250,000 
for  the  grunt  work  of  making  the  movie. 

A  year  later,  Cohen  sent  screenwriter 
Michael  Cristofer's  first  draft  of  the 
screenplay  to  Nicholson.  "If  we  can  get 
the  right  director,  I'm  in,"  the  star  said. 
George  Miller,  director  of  the  Mad 
Max/Road  Warrior  trilogy,  was  inter- 
ested, too,  and  Cohen  and  Devlin 
passed  the  word  to  Warner's  and  to 
Guber  and  Peters.  Days  later,  Cohen 
heard  from  Cristofer.   "When  are 
you  going  to  Paris?"  the  screenwriter 
asked.  "I  just  got  a  call  from 
Lucy  Fisher  at  Warner's,  and  she 
said  I'm  supposed  to  go  to  Paris 
and  meet  George  Miller." 

Fisher  told  Cohen  that  War- 
ner's had  decided  to  send  Guber  to 
close  the  deal.  She  added  that  Co- 
hen would  get  a  call  shortly  from 
Warner's  business-affairs  director, 
Jim  Miller,  about  changing  his  and 
Devlin's  credit  on  the  film  from  pro- 
ducers to  executive  producers,  a  hol- 
low title.  Now  that  Witches  of  Eastwick 
had  attracted  big-name  talent,  Guber  and 
Peters  were  shoving  Cohen  and  Devlin 
aside.  Mark  Canton's  brother,  Neil  Can- 
ton, was  hired  as  line  producer. 

The  production  got  off  to  a  rocky 
start  when  Warner's  pressured  George 
Miller,  who  had  promised  the  lead  role 
of  Alexandra  to  Susan  Sarandon,  into 
replacing  her  with  Cher.  Miller  asked 
Sarandon  to  play  the  number-two  witch, 
Jane.  Michelle  Pfeiffer  would  be  witch 
number  three.  Sarandon  got  the  impres- 
sion that  Cher  had  demanded  the  lead 
role.  "Susan  wouldn't  talk  to  me,  she 
wouldn't  look  at  me,  she  was  crying  a  lot, 
she  was  smoking  like  crazy,"  Cher  says.  "I 
thought  it  was  just  erratic  behavior." 

Miller  was  just  as  resentful.  "George 
Miller  wanted  anybody  but  me  in  that 
movie,"  Cher  says.  "Like,  on  my  birth- 
day," she  continues.  "I'll  never  forget  this. 

102 

OaUflMMHHI 


HAREM:  Streisand  and  Peters's 
ex-wife  Lesley  Ann  Warren 
[near  left)  were  among  his  roma 
conquests,  along  with  interior 
decorator  Christine  Forsyth 
(with  whom  he  is  pictured  in 
Acapulco  in  1980),  Kim  Basinger, 
and  supermodel  Vendela. 


A 

n 


.... 


^      Bob  Daly 
Peters  to  pull  the 
Madonna  track. 
Peters  leapt  on  top  of 
**      Daly's  desk- 
and  began  jumping  up 


and  down. 


We've  got  a  pic 
ture  of  me  in  my 
hotel  room  on  my 
bed:  they're  bring- 
ing a  cake  in  to  me 
and  I'm  sitting  there  crying 
because  George  Miller  told  me  I'm  not 
sexy  enough  to  play  Alexandra." 

Other  conflicts  erupted.  Miller  envi- 
sioned the  film  as  "an  ironic,  eccentric 
comedy  of  manners."  Jon  Peters,  whom 
Miller  describes  as  "genuinely  thought- 
disordered,"  demanded  a  special-effects 
extravaganza.  Warner's  let  them  fight 
it  out.  With  director  and  producer  at 
war.  the  actresses  felt  ignored.  They  be- 
lieved that  the  script  portrayed  them  as 
interchangeable— and  threatened  to  quit. 
"The  more  they  were  quitting,  the  more 
fun  it  was  for  Jack,"  says  a  Warner's 
source.  "Jack  would  stir  them  up  and 
then  sit  there  and  laugh." 


s  the  shoot  progressed, 
tensions     escalated     be- 
tween Miller  and  Peters, 
who  took  out  his  fury  on  whoever 
was  available.  Peters  threw  a  chair 
during  a   meeting  with   Sarandon. 
"He  was  really  rough  on  Sue,"  says 
Cher,  "really  disrespectful."  Peters 
barred  Sarandon's  daughter  from 
the  set,  then  brought  visitors— in- 
cluding Barbra  Streisand— to  watch 
the  filming  on  a  particularly  diffi- 
cult day,  enraging  the  actresses.  Peters 
tried  to  placate  Cher  by  offering  her 
jewelry.  "What  do  you  think  I  am,  a 
whore?"  she  retorted. 

One  scene  required  Cher  to  be  cov- 
ered with  snakes.  "Which  one  is  Jon 
Peters?"  she  inquired,  entertaining  the 
crew.  "Here  he  is,"  she  said,  point- 
ing to  a  reptile.  "And  the  little  one 
is  Mark  Canton." 

The  studio  seemed  unable  or 
unwilling    to    address    the 
problems.   On   one   occa- 
sion, Peter  Guber  showed 
up— with    no    discernible 
effect.   "I  don't  know  if 
he  actually  did  anything," 
says  Cher.  "Jon  Peters  at 
least  would  scream  and 
yell,  and  you  knew  what 
he  was  thinking.  .  .  .  You 
never  knew  what  was  go- 
ing   on    with    Guber.    I 
mean,  he  would  just  smile." 


The  film  was  a  $64  million  hit, 
but  a  taste  of  success  in  the 
movie  business  only  made 
Guber  and  Peters  hungry  for  more.  Pe- 
ters, particularly,  saw  the  world  as  his  for 
the  taking,  and  had  heard  of  a  man  who 
could  help:  Drexel,  Burnham,  Lambert's 
Michael  Milken,  the  junk-bond  king. 
Frank  Wells,  Disney's  president,  took  Pe- 
ters to  Milken's  lush  Beverly  Hills  offices 
one  morning  at  4:30,  the  hour  when 
Milken  met  supplicants.  Milken  con- 
signed him  to  his  protege  Terren  Peizer. 

Peizer  doubted  he  could  get  any  in- 
vestors to  bankroll  Peters  and  Guber  in 
a  play  for  a  company.  But  they  had 
friends  who  just  might  ante  up.  Strei- 
sand's name  was  bandied  about— and, 
rather  surprisingly,  Steven  Spielberg's— 

VANITY  FAIR  /JUNE  1996 


as  the  threesome  toyed  with  ideas.  Peters 
tried  to  get  Warner's  to  finance  the  pur- 
chase of  the  Six  Flags  amusement-park 
chain.  He  planned  to  rename  it  "Guber 
and  Peters's  Six  Flags."  Nothing  materi- 
alized, and  as  time  passed,  Peizer's  at- 
tention shifted  to  Guber,  who  was  talk- 
ing to  Columbia  Pictures  about  returning 
there  to  head  the  studio.  Guber's  part- 
nership with  the  volatile  Peters  was  prov- 
ing exhausting.  He  told  Peizer  he  was 
getting  restless.  Peizer  urged  Guber  to 
"do  something  bigger  first." 

Peizer  had  a  brainstorm:  he  would 
match  Guber  and  Peters  with  Burt  Sug- 
arman— an  eccentric,  ruthless  former 
car  salesman  who  now  owned  a  cement 
firm  and  dabbled  in  the  entertainment 
world.  Sugarman  had  scored  his  biggest 
success  with  Midnight  Special,  a  late- 
night  show  featuring  rock  acts.  In  1987, 
Sugarman  had  bought  a  controlling 
interest  in  Chuck  Barris's  production 
company,  which  made  game  shows  such 
as  The  Newlywed  Game.  He  had  met 
Peizer  that  same  year  at  the  Predators' 
Ball,  an  annual  conference  of  Drexel 
clients.  Sugarman  was  raising  $60  mil- 
lion through  Drexel,  and  wanted  to  par- 
lay his  cash  into  something  big. 

"So  I  had  this  thought,"  says  Peizer: 


Sugarman  should  acquire  the  Guber- 
Peters  production  company. 

For  the  purposes  of  the  deal,  Peizer 
made  the  "assumption"  that  the  Guber- 
Peters  production  company  was  worth 
about  $50  million.  Based  on  Drexel's 
valuation,  Peters  and  Guber  would  re- 
ceive Barris  stock  and  short-term  notes 
worth  nearly  $30  million,  based  on  the 
stock's  value  at  the  time. 

Peizer  felt  that  he  was  giving  Guber 
and  Peters  a  spectacular  gift.  They  were 
then  splitting  around  $7  million  before 
taxes  in  their  best  year.  But  they  hesitat- 
ed, and  Peizer  became  irritated.  Didn't 
they  realize  that  Barris  would  be  acquir- 
ing a  company  that  Peizer  had  almost 
made  up?  After  brokering  the  deal,  Pei- 
zer washed  his  hands  of  the  partners.  "I 
think  they  didn't  realize  what  I  had  just 
done  for  them.  .  .  .  They're  very  greedy." 

In  December  1987,  the  merger  with 
Barris  went  through.  "We're  a  real  stu- 
dio now,"  Peters  crowed  to  the  Los  An- 
geles Times.  "I  want  to  build  another 
MCA."  At  a  meeting  of  prospective  in- 
vestors, one  staid  business  type  asked 
about  the  partners'  vision  for  the  compa- 
ny. Peters  obliged,  saying,  "This  might 
be  a  little  seed  right  now,  but  it's  going 
to  germinate  into  a  fucking  sequoia." 


Ultimately,  problems  arose  from  the 
fact  that  Sugarman  had  retained  power  to 
vote  all  shares.  He  had  control  and  spent 
money  liberally— but  not  on  empire -build- 
ing moves.  Instead  he  pursued  costly, 
predatory  dreams,  flying  around  on  his 
Gulfstream  and  billing  the  company.  Pe- 
ters and  Guber,  who  had  logged  their 
share  of  air  time  on  the  Warner's  jet, 
fought  with  him  constantly  over  the  use 
of  the  plane.  "You  thought  somebody  was 
going  to  get  killed,"  says  Chris  Bearde,  a 
Barris  producer.  "Burt  had  this  cement 
factory  and  there  was  this  joke  that  some- 
body was  going  to  end  up  in  cement." 

The  three  partners  announced  a  new 
talk  show  with  Kenny  Rogers,  but  it  nev- 
er jelled.  Jeff  Wald,  now  an  executive  at 
Barris,  maintains  that  Sugarman  had  of- 
fered Rogers  so  much— $12  million  in 
the  first  two  years— that  Barris  could 
never  have  made  money.  In  another  di- 
sastrous interlude,  Sugarman  waged  an 
expensive  and  futile  battle  for  Media 
General,  a  Virginia-based  company. 

In  July  1988,  the  partners  announced 
that  they  intended  to  pay  $100  mil- 
lion for  25  percent  of  the  MGM  stu- 
dio, which  was  being  dismantled  bit  by 
bit  by  its  owner,  Kirk  Kerkorian.  Peter 


LAUREN     HUTTON 
TAKES    FIVE    IN     ELEUTHERA 


VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


No    5    AM    Calls 

No    Hair    and    Makeup 

No    Paparazzi 

No    Autographs 

No    Rabbit    Food 

No    Retouching 

THE    ISLANDS    OF    THE    BAHAMAS 

It   Just    Keeps    Getting    Better 

Call  your  travel  agent  •  h Up  .//www.  interknowledge  .  com/bahamas 

103 


Guber  would  serve  as  chairman  and 
C.E.O.;  Peters  would  be  president  and 
C.O.O.  The  majority  of  the  company 
would  still  be  Kerkorian's. 

Since  MGM's  crown  jewel— its  film  li- 
brary—had already  been  sold  to  Ted 
Turner,  it  was  unclear  what  the  Barris 
partners  were  getting  for  their  money. 
The  only  obvious  answer  was  the  Leo 
the  Lion  logo.  But  Guber  and  Peters 
dived  right  in,  dashing  around  with  Leo 
the  Lion  sweatshirts  and  gym  bags. 

Two  weeks  after  the  MGM  acquisi- 
tion deal  was  made  public,  it  collapsed. 
Terry  Christensen,  Kerkorian's  attorney, 
says  it  fell  apart  because  the  Barris  team 
couldn't  decide  what  to  do.  Other 
sources  believe  the  Barris  team  was 
having  difficulty  with  financing.  The 
abortive  deal  cost  Barris  $5  million.  In 
October  1988,  the  company  reported  a 
net  loss  of  $6.9  million  for  the  quarter 
that  ended  August  31.  Revenue  had 
dropped  13  percent. 

Ultimately,  Frank  Lowy,  an  Australian 
shopping-mall  and  TV  magnate,  paid  $13 
per  share  to  buy  out  Sugarman.  It  was  an 
exorbitant  price.  But  Guber  and  Peters 
didn't  get  along  much  better  with  Lowy 
than  they  had  with  Sugarman.  Both  men 
wanted  out  of  the  firm,  which 
had  been  renamed  the  Gu- 
ber-Peters  Entertainment 
Company  (G.P.E.C.) 
Not  four  months  lat- 
er, a  new  mountain- 
top  came  into  view. 
Gary  Winnick,  a 
former  Milken  as- 
sociate and  a  share- 
holder in  G.P.E.C, 
picked  up  the  ru 
mor  that  Sony  was 
poised  to  buy  Colum- 
bia Pictures. 


"Peter  was  told  he 

would  have  to  give  Lynda 

half  his  assets. 

He  called  her  up  and 

said,  'Hi,  honey. 

I'm  coming  home.' " 


ACT  IV 

Flashback 

By  the  time  they  began  plotting  how  to 
horn  in  on  the  Columbia  deal,  the  dy- 
namic duo  of  Guber  and  Peters  had 
"made"  Rain  Man  and  Batman,  films 
that  created  the  impression  that  their 
makers'  instincts  were  so  brilliant  that 
they  could  run  a  major  studio.  But  nei- 
ther Guber  nor  Peters  had  initially  shown 
much  interest  in  the  first  project. 

Michael  Ovitz,  then  CAA's  super- 
agent  to  the  stars,  is  credited  with  actu- 
ally getting  the  picture  made  with  his 
clients— Dustin  Hoffman,  Tom  Cruise, 
and  director  Barry  Levinson. 

In  1986,  writer  Barry  Morrow  pitched 
the  Rain  Man  story,  of  a  car  salesman 
who  takes  a  road  trip  with  his  autistic 
brother,  to  Roger  Birnbaum,  then  presi- 
dent of  the  Guber-Peters  company.  "This 
is  the  best  story  I  ever  heard,"  Birn- 
baum said.  Guber,  unimpressed,  told 
Birnbaum  to  find  an  interested  studio. 

United  Artists  president  Robert  Law- 
rence immediately  bought  the  project, 
and  Birnbaum  spent  eight  months  de- 
veloping the  script  with  Morrow.  Birn- 
baum's  contract  guaranteed  that  he 
would  receive  a  producer's  credit  and 
a  percentage  of  the  profits  if  the 
picture  was  made. 
At  the  same  time, 
.  however,  he  was  be- 
ing wooed  by  Unit- 
ed Artists  to  be- 
come its  president 
of  production. 

According     to 
Birnbaum,  his  boss- 
es agreed  to  let  him 
out  of  his  contract 
to  take  the  UA  job, 
but  promised  to  con- 
tinue his  financial  par- 
ticipation in  Rain  Man 
and  other  films  he  had 
developed.  So  he 
went  off  to  Unit- 
ed Artists. 

In   the   mean- 
time,  Ovitz   had 
gotten  Dustin  Hoff- 
man  and  director 
Martin  Brest  inter- 
ested in  Rain  Man. 
Brest   soon   fell   by 
the  wayside  because 
of    differences    with 

SAND  CASTLE:  Guber  slipped  away 

to  the  Malitni  Colony  when  he  briefly  split 

from  his  wife,  Lynda,  in  1983. 


the  notoriously  perfectionistic  Hoffman. 
Directors  Steven  Spielberg  and  Sydney 
Pollack  both  joined  and  left  the  project. 
Finally  Ovitz  brought  in  Barry  Levinson, 
whose  longtime  associate  Mark  Johnson 
took  over  producing  chores. 

Guber  and  Peters,  Rain  Man  s  execu- 
tive producers,  visited  the  set  just  once, 
winging  in  on  the  Warner's  jet  when  the 
production  was  in  Las  Vegas.  They  chat- 
ted with  Levinson,  Hoffman,  and  Cruise 
and  had  pictures  taken.  Jon  reportedly 
asked  Hoffman,  "Are  you  playing  the 
retard  or  the  other  guy?" 

When  it  came  time  to  sell  the  movie, 
Guber  jumped  in  to  persuade  UA  to 
spend  more  money  on  marketing.  "Pe- 
ter was  involved  in  several  marketing 
meetings  and  was  quite  helpful,"  says 
Mark  Johnson.  "I  actually  learned  a  lot 
from  Peter  in  those  meetings." 

But  for  Roger  Birnbaum  the  horror 
was  about  to  begin.  He  asked  Guber 
and  Peters  about  his  promised  credit;  he 
believed  he  would  be  listed  along  with 
his  former  bosses  as  an  executive  pro- 
ducer. Guber  and  Peters,  however, 
weren't  forthcoming. 

"Jon  would  say,  'It's  O.K.  with  me; 
you  gotta  ask  Peter.'  And  I'd  go  to  Pe- 
ter, and  he  said,  'It's  O.K.  with  me; 
you've  gotta  go  ask  Jon.'  They  played 
that  game  until  I  realized  they  were  just 
bullshitting  me,"  Birnbaum  says.  Levin- 
son, however,  granted  Birnbaum  a  spe- 
cial credit  at  the  end  of  the  film. 

"Rain  Man  belongs  to  a  lot  of  peo- 
ple," Johnson  told  nearly  a  billion  peo- 
ple when  he  collected  the  Oscar  for  best 
picture  of  1988.  He  thanked  the  long  list 
of  people,  including  Roger  Birnbaum, 
who  had  contributed  to  the  winning 
project  before  it  fell  into  his  hands.  Yet 
most  film  aficionados  probably  don't  re- 
call that  Mark  Johnson  actually  pro- 
duced Rain  Man.  They  may,  however, 
have  a  vague  recollection  that  Guber 
and  Peters  were  associated  with  the  film. 
In  a  widely  circulated  photograph  taken 
at  the  Governor's  Ball  following  the  cer- 
emony, the  pair  posed,  ebullient,  holding 
a  Rain  Man  Oscar— which  they  had  bor- 
rowed from  screenwriter  Morrow. 

Like  Rain  Man,  Batman  began  as 
someone  else's  baby.  Since  childhood, 
Michael  Uslan  had  been  obsessed 
with  Gotham  City's  Caped  Crusader.  In 
partnership  with  Ben  Melniker,  a  former 
MGM  executive  who  had  worked  on 
Ben  Hur  and  Doctor  Zhivago,  he  was  de- 
termined to  produce  the  definitive  Bat- 
man movie.  Uslan  and  Melniker  per- 
suaded D.C.  Comics,  which  had  resent- 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


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ed  the  silly  portrayal  of  Batman  in  the 
60s  television  series,  to  sell  them  licens- 
ing rights  for  a  series  of  movies. 

Uslan  and  Melniker  pitched  the  idea 
to  Casablanca  in  1979.  Guber  was  en- 
thralled. "I  love  it,"  he  said.  "I  get  it." 
The  partners  entered  into  a  complicat- 
ed joint  venture  with  Casablanca  which 
guaranteed  Melniker  and  Uslan  40  per- 
cent of  whatever  profit  Guber  and  Pe- 
ters received.  It  also  stated  that  they 
"shall  be  accorded  credit  as  the  produc- 
ers of  the  picture." 

When  Jon  Peters  joined  PolyGram 
Pictures  in  1980,  he  met  with  Melniker 
and  Uslan  at  the  Carlyle  Hotel  in  New 
York.  Uslan  provided  him  with  a  sin- 
gle-spaced, nine-page  memo,  dated  No- 
vember 6,  1980,  which  outlined  his  vi- 
sion for  a  new  Batman  film.  In  it  he 
recommended  that  Robin's  character 
be  eliminated  or  whittled  down,  and 
that  the  story  focus  on  Batman's  at- 
tempts to  vanquish  a  villain  called  the 
Joker.  Uslan  even  suggested  casting  for 
the  Joker:  Jack  Nicholson. 

When  Guber  and  Peters  affiliated 
themselves  with  Warner's  in  1982,  Mel- 
niker and  Uslan  assumed  that  the  terms 
of  the  original  deal  would  still  apply. 

In  the  next  few  years  the  project 
cooled— and  then  heated  up  again.  Ac- 
tion began  in  earnest  when  Warner's 
production  executive  Bonni  Lee  seized 
on  Batman  as  a  vehicle  for  27-year 
old  wunderkind  Tim  Burton, 
who  was  then  directing 
Beetlejuice  for  the 
studio.  Burton,  a 
haunted-looking  fel 
low,  dressed  in  black 
and  rarely  spoke  in 
complete  sentences. 
He  wanted  to  make 
a  dark,  psychological 
study  of  the  super- 
hero. Sam  Hamm,  a 
young  screenwriter,  was 
brought  in  to  fashion  the  script 
Burton  met  twice  with  Melniker  and 
Uslan,  who  provided  research.  Even- 
tually Hamm's  script  was  green-light- 
ed by  Semel  and  Daly.  Filming  started 
in  October  1988  at  London's  Pinewood 
Studios. 

Melniker  and  Uslan  read  in  the  trade 
papers  that  Batman  was  going  into  pro- 
duction—and that  Guber  and  Peters 
were  taking  credit  as  the  producers. 
When  they  contacted  Warner's  head  of 
business  affairs,  Jim  M  Llei  to  inform 
him  that  the  studio  was  'dung  the 
Casablanca  agreement,  tht       ••,  Miller 


"Peters  came 
out  carrying  an  old-style, 

pearl-handled 

six-shooter,  yelling  and 

screaming/7 


told  them  if  they  did  not  sign  an  amend- 
ed contract  they  would  be  thrown  off 
the  picture  entirely.  On  September  8, 
1988,  they  signed  a  new  contract  that 
gave  them  nominal  credit  as  executive 
producers,  stripped  them  of  creative  in- 
volvement and  consulting  rights,  and 
granted  them  13  percent  of  net  profits. 
As  all  but  the  rankest  amateurs  in  Hol- 
lywood know,  net  points  are  generally 
worthless.  But  Melniker  and  Uslan  say 
that  Miller  told  them,  "If  you  don't  like 
it,  you  can  bring  a  lawsuit."  (Warner's 
did  not  respond  to  calls.) 

While  Melniker  and  Uslan  fretted. 
Burton  got  acquainted  with  his  bosses. 
"When  I  first  started  the  project,"  Bur- 
ton recalls,  "Peter  Guber  was  the  one  I 
dealt  with  most.  He  talked  too  fast  for 
me  to  understand  sometimes." 

For  the  key  job  of  production  design- 
er, Burton  chose  Anton  Furst  to  create 
a  moody  Gotham  City  and  spiffy  high- 
tech  Batgear.  To  play  Batman,  Jon  Pe- 
ters favored  Michael  Keaton,  arguing 
that  the  actor  had  an  edgy,  tormented 
quality  which  suited  the  character.  Semel 
and  Daly  finally  agreed. 

Despite  a  reputation  for  instability. 
Blade  Runner  star  Sean  Young  was  cast 
as  photographer  Vicki  Vale.  For  the  Jok- 
er, Mark  Canton  and  Peters,  like  Uslan 
before  them,  had  their  heart  set  on  Jack 
Nicholson.  Nicholson  met  Burton  and 
liked  him,  but  the  star  still  needed  woo- 
ing. Peters  jumped  in.  Wouldn't 
Nicholson  like  to  jet  over 
to  London  and  see  the 
sets?  Nicholson  said 
he  wouldn't  mind, 
and  Peters  reserved 
the  Warner's  Gulf- 
stream  III. 

Peters  planned  a 
few  restorative  sur- 
prises for  the  trip— no- 
tably a  personal  trainer 
and  masseuse.  After  the 
jet  took  off,  Nicholson 
worked  out  and  had  a 
massage  before  sampling 
some  caviar.  After  they  returned  to 
L.A.,  Nicholson  told  Peters  he'd  be  the 
Joker  and  then  cut  himself  a  deal  for  $6 
million  plus  a  percentage  of  the  film's 
gross  earnings.  (Eventually  he  would 
make  a  reported  $50  million.) 

Burton  had  heard  all  the  Jon  Peters 
stories  and  he  soon  got  a  taste  of  what 
George  Miller  had  experienced  during 
the  making  of  The  Witches  of  Eastwick. 
He  had  expected  to  shoot  the  Sam 
Flamm  script,  but  found  to  his  dismay 
that  Peters,  backed  by  Warner's,  wanted 


extensive  revisions.  A  brooding  super- 
hero who  needed  Prozac  and  couldn't 
get  a  date  was  hardly  Peters's  idea  of 
entertainment.  He  bore  down  on  Bur- 
ton, whom  he  alternately  tyrannized 
and  coddled. 

A  major  crisis  occurred  when  Sean 
Young  fell  and  broke  her  arm  just  be- 
fore filming.  Burton  wanted  Michelle 
Pfeiffer  to  replace  her.  But  Keaton  had 
just  ended  a  romance  with  Pfeiffer,  so 
Peters  and  Mark  Canton  settled  on  Kim 
Basinger,  who  was  whisked  to  London 
with  her  husband.  During  an  evening 
out,  Peters  was  angered  by  what  he  con- 
sidered to  be  the  husband's  verbally  abu- 
sive treatment  of  the  star.  He  reached 
across  the  table  and  grabbed  him  by  the 
neck,  and  the  men  nearly  got  into  a 
brawl.  Thereafter,  Peters  considered  Ba- 
singer fair  game.  (His  own  marriage  to 
Christine  Forsyth  had  ended.)  When 
Basinger's  husband  left  town,  she  began 
an  affair  with  Peters,  which  lasted  for  the 
duration  of  the  shoot. 

"My  sweetheart  hoodlum,"  she  called 
Peters.  Some  nights  she  could  be  seen  in 
her  pajamas  leaving  her  hotel  room  at 
the  St.  James  Club,  toothbrush  in  hand, 
heading  up  to  Peters's  penthouse  suite 
for  the  night. 

At  Peters's  behest,  Anton  Furst  came 
up  with  the  simple  but  evocative  Bat- 
symbol  that  would  become  ubiquitous 
even  before  the  film  opened.  "That's  ex- 
actly what  we  want,"  Peters  exulted 
when  Furst  showed  him  his  sketches. 
Peters  envisioned  the  poster  as  consist- 
ing solely  of  the  logo  and  the  June  23, 
1989,  opening  date.  "I  wanted  to  do, 
like,  foreplay,  to  create  the  magic  and 
myth  of  it  all,"  Peters  said  later.  When 
Warner's  balked,  he  waged  an  all-out 
war  to  do  it  his  way. 

There  were  other  wars:  by  the  time 
Batman  wrapped,  Jon  had  made  him- 
self unpopular  with  the  British  crew. 
He  had  taken  them  off  the  payroll  dur- 
ing a  three-week  Christmas  break.  (It  is 
customary  for  crews  to  be  paid  over 
holidays.)  Money  was  also  an  issue  in 
a  flap  over  the  top-of-the-line  black 
leather  crew  jackets  which  displayed 
the  Batman  logo.  Nicholson  and  Peters 
had  agreed  to  split  the  cost  of  the  jack- 
ets over  and  above  the  $10,000  allotted 
in  the  budget.  But  when  a  bill  arrived 
for  $100,000,  Peters  reneged. 

When  Nicholson  was  told  that  it 
would  cost  him  $90,000  to  cover  the 
cost,  he  stormed  over  to  Basinger.  "Tell 
that  guy  whose  cock  you've  been  suck- 
ing for  the  last  six  months  that  he's  an 


106 


VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


asshole  for  not  paying  for  those  jack- 
ets!" he  snapped.  That,  at  least,  was  the 
story  that  was  gleefully  reported  back  in 
Hollywood  for  months.  Warner's  ulti- 
mately absorbed  the  cost  of  the  jackets. 

It  was  worth  it.  On  the  Monday 
morning  after  the  film's  opening,  the 
trades  trumpeted  the  good  news:  Bat- 
man had  taken  in  $42.7  million  at  2,100 
screens,  breaking  every  record  in 
motion-picture  history.  Within  10  days, 
it  grossed  more  than  $100  million,  an- 
other record. 

On  March  26,  1992,  Michael  Uslan 
and  Ben  Melniker  filed  a  breach-of- 
contract  suit  in  Los  Angeles  County  Su- 
perior Court,  claiming  that  they  were 
"the  victims  of  a  sinister  campaign  of 
fraud  and  coercion." 

The  judge  threw  out  their  case,  which 
is  now  on  appeal.  Uslan  and  Melniker 
have  had  to  console  themselves  with  their 
executive-producers'  fee  of  $300,000 
apiece.  Seven  years  after  the  release  of 
Batman,  with  total  box-office  revenues 
topping  the  $400  million  mark,  Mel- 
niker and  Uslan  have  not  seen  a  penny 
of  their  13  percent  of  net  profits.  Their 
net-profit  participation  has  proved 
worthless.  According  to  Warner  Bros., 
Batman  is  still  in  the  red. 


ACTV 

The  Score 

In  September  1989,  Walter  Yetnikoff, 
freshly  out  of  drug  rehab  at  the  Hazel- 
den  Clinic,  found  himself  at  the 
epicenter  of  a  multibillion-dollar  deal. 
Yetnikoff,  the  head  of  Sony  Corpora- 
tion's successful  music  division,  was 
playing  a  pivotal  role  in  the  Japanese 
electronics  giant's  acquisition  of  Colum- 
bia Pictures.  The  cost,  $3.4  billion  plus 
$1.6  billion  in  debt,  was  considered 
high.  But  that  wasn't  the  hang-up.  If  the 
deal  was  to  "make,"  in  the  industry  par- 
lance, Sony  needed  managers  to  put  in 
charge  of  the  new  studio.  Under  pres- 
sure, Yetnikoff  had  an  idea:  he  would 
call  his  old  friends  film  producers  Peter 
Guber  and  Jon  Peters.  He  phoned  Gu- 
ber  in  L.A.  on  a  Thursday  night  and 
the  two  men  met  for  dinner  in  Manhat- 
tan two  days  later. 

Not  long  after,  on  Yetnikoff's  recom- 
mendation and  with  financial  advice 
from  the  Blackstone  Group,  Sony  rocked 
Hollywood  and  Wall  Street  by  hiring  Jon 
Peters  and  Peter  Guber-a  pair  of  cow- 
boy producers  with  little  corporate  man- 
agement experience  between  them— as 
co-chairmen  of  its  new  studio.  But  it  was 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


PHOTO  OPPORTUNISTS:  The  Oscar  that 
Guber  and  Peters  posed  with  at  the 
1989  Academy  Awards  was  borrowed  from 
one  of  Rain  Man's  screenwriters. 


the  lavish  terms  of  the  deal  that  truly 
stunned  industry  insiders:  not  only  did 
the  Japanese  agree  to  pay  $200  million 
for  Guber  and  Peters's  money-losing  pro- 
duction   company    (about    40    percent 
above  its  market  value),  but  Sony  also 
awarded  them  an  unprecedented  com- 
pensation package,  including  $2.75  mil- 
lion apiece  in  annual  salary,  a 
$50   million   bonus   pool, 
and  a  stake  in  any  in- 
crease in  the  studio's 
value  over  the  next 
five  years. 

But  that  wasn't  all. 
Sony  had  to  take  an- 
other whopping  fi- 
nancial hit  and  en- 
dure a  public  humili- 
ation as  well.  The 
company's  executives 
had  believed  Guber 
and  Peters's  assurances 
that  Warner  Commu- 
nications Inc.  chairman 
Steve  Ross  would  release 
them  from  their  recently  signed 
five-year  deal  to  let  them  run 
Sony.  But  no  sooner  was  the  ink  dry  on 
the  new  deal  than  an  enraged  Ross  and 
Warner  Bros,  slapped  the  Japanese  with 
a  billion-dollar  breach-of-contract  law- 
suit. Sony  eventually  had  to  pay  War- 
ner's an  estimated  $800  million  ransom 
to  settle  out  of  court— and  win  the  ser- 
vices of  the  Batman  boys. 


EPILOGUE 

If  Guber  and  Peters  regretted  that 
Sony  had  to  spend  so  much  to  hire 
them,  they  didn't  show  it  by  exercis- 
ing fiscal  restraint  in  their  new  jobs. 
Continuing  the  pattern  formed  at  Poly- 
Gram,  they  spent  big  from  the  start, 
setting  off  a  wave  of  inflation  that  is 
still  being  felt  in  the  movie  business  to- 
day. Guber  and  Peters  took  Sony  on 
the  wildest  and  most  profligate  ride 
that  Hollywood  had  ever  seen.  For  five 
years,  Sony  executives  in  Tokyo  and 
New  York  stood  by  while  the  studio  lost 
billions  and  became  a  symbol  for  the 
worst  kind  of  excess  in  an  industry  that 
is  hardly  known  for  moderation.  There 
were  box-office  bombs,  lavish  renova- 
tions, and  extravagant  parties  against  a 
backdrop  of  corporate  intrigue,  expen- 
sive firings,  and  even  a  call-girl  scandal. 


The  ill-advised  pair- 
ing of  the  Japa- 
nese corporation  with 
Hollywood's  cleverest 
rogues  would  culmi- 
nate, as  one  insider  del- 
icately put  it,  in  "the 
most  public  screwing  in  the 
history  of  the  movie  business." 

After  he  achieved  his  dream  of  be- 
coming co-chairman  of  Columbia  Pic- 
tures, Guber  decided  he  would  rather 
do  the  job  alone.  In  April  1991,  Guber 
orchestrated  the  firing  of  his  longtime 
partner.  After  he  was  pushed  out,  Peters 
says,  Guber  would  occasionally  call  and 
pretend  that  nothing  had  gone  wrong. 
Once,  Guber  asked  Peters  to  a  screen- 
ing. As  they  drove  to  the  theater  togeth- 
er, Peters  found  that  he  could  not  con- 
tinue the  charade.  "I  broke  down  in  the 
car  and  started  crying,  and  said,  'How 
could  you  do  this?' "  he  remembers. 

According  to  Peters,  Guber  had 
cried,  too,  and  began  to  reminisce  about 
Neil  Bogart.  Peters  surmised  that  there 
was  a  parallel  between  the  situations  in 
Guber's  mind.  "He  left  Neil  for  me  and 
he  felt  guilty,"  Peters  says.  As  he  often 
did,  Peters  began  to  hope  that  reconcili- 
ation was  possible.  "He  said  something 
like  'You  know  why  I  loved  being  part- 
ners with  you?'  And  I  thought  he  was 
going  to  talk  about  all  the  creative  and 
emotional  experiences  we  shared.  And 
he  looked  at  me  and  said,  i  was  always 
jealous  of  you  because  you  had  the  pret- 
tiest girlfriends.'" 

Peters  was  floored  by  Guber's  state- 
ment. "It  was  like  part  of  me  died,"  he 
says.  "He  could  not  acknowledge  my 
existence."  □ 

107 


sleeping  beauty 

While  you  sleep,  it  works.  Overnight. 
For  younger  looking  skin. 


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Introducing 

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•iillllmM 


i  ifth-grader  ALEXANDRA 
NECHITA  is  yet  another  tiny, 
gifted  girl  from  Romania 
who  has  an  entourage  of 
■■  adults.  She  too  wears  slippers 
when  she  works.  But  forget 
the  gym— Nechita  is  a  painter. 
The  press  has  dubbed  her 
Pint-Size  Picasso,  Petite  Picasso, 
^:Year-Old  Picasso.  You  get^^^fe 
i  This  month  the  International 
eries  in  Costa  Mesa, 
California,  features  Nechita's  19th 
solo  exhibition,  and  Longstreet  Press 
publishes  a  book  of  her  paintings, 
fside  tfie  Lines.  Something  of 
3vant,  Nechita  paints  on  canvases 
so  big  she  has  to  stand  on  a  stool 

top,  surrounded,  she  says, 
ind  Jesus."  Her  works 
ace  with  a  lexicon  of  doves 
(the  Nechita  family 
os  Angeles  when  Alexandra 
id  heroes  include  the  Pope 
■  I  JeGeneres  ("She's  buying 
one  of  my  paintings").  As  for  prices, 
college  is  paid  for.    ,        -LAURA  JACOBS 


Photograph  by  EIKA  AOSHIMA 


109 


anities 


Michael  Chow, 

restaurateur:  Duveen, 

by  S.  N.  Behrman  (Random  House). 

"Duveen,  the  greatest 

art  dealer,  transported  nobility 

and  culture  from  Europe 

to  America.  For  obsessive  collectors, 

the  book  is  revealing" 


Kali  Morton, 

author,  host  (/America  and  the 

World  on  NPR. 
Anna  Karenina,  by  Leo  Tolstoy 

(Random  House). 
'At  15 1  sair  the  book  as  a  great 

tragic  romance.  Noir  I'm 

stunned  by  Tolstoy  s  surgically 

accurate  portrayal  of  the 

death-in-life  of  a  woman  trapped 

in  an  unhappy  marriage. " 


Amber  Valletta, 

model:  The  Alchemist, 

by  Paulo  Coelho 

(HarperSanFrancisco).  "It  is 

inspiring  and  magical. 

It  made  me  remember  that  it  is 

always  important  to 

follow  your  dreams  in  life" 


Dr.  Vartan  Gregorian, 

president  of  Brown  I  University: 

The  Unredeemed  Captive,  by  John  Demos 

(Vintage).  "It's  about  a  1704 

incident  at  Deerfield.  Massachusetts, 

where  the  English,  the  French. 

and  all  the  Indians  faced  one  another 

across  ethnic,  racial,  religious,  and 

cultural  divides. " 


■<£?  e* 

L 

■ 

i 

Y 

ho  says  the  Brits  are 

loathsome  cooks?  Well. 

most    everybody,    but 

RUTH     ROGERS     and 

ROSE   GRAY,   the  co- 
owners  and   chefs  of 

London's  River  Cafe, 

prove  the  planet  wrong 
by  sharing  a  treasure  trove  of  their 
culinary  jewels  in  The  Rogers  and 
Gray  Italian  Coun- 
try Cookbook  (Ran- 
dom House). 

Also  this  month: 
Trusted  cultural  in- 
terpreter NANCY 
FRIDAY  charts  the  seismic  shifts  in 
women's  attitudes  over  the  last  25 
years  in  To  Be  Seen  (HarperCollins). 
A  70s  avant-garde  filmmaker  is  sucked  into 
the  gay-club  universe  in  BRAD  GOOCH'S  new 
novel,  Tlie  Golden  Age  of  Promiscuity  (Knopf) 
ELIZABETH  McCRACKEN'S  The  Giant's  House 
(Dial)  throws  together  a  misfit  librarian  and  an  enor- 
mous 11-year-old.  An  Architectural  Life  (Little,  Brown) 
is  KEVIN  P.  KEIM'S  remembrance  of  maverick  ar- 
chitect Charles  W.  Moore.  LINDA  FAIRSTEIN'S  two 
decades  as  a  prosecutor  of  sex  crimes  imbues  Final 
Jeopardy  (Scribner)  with  riveting  authenticity.  FRANK 
DeCARO'S  hilarious  suburban  memoir,  A  Bov  Named 
Phyllis  ( Viking),  lays  waste  to  the  myth  that  it's  sheer 


Top  to  bottom:  all-seeing  Nancy  Friday; 
chefs  Rose  Gray  (left)  and  Ruth  Rogers  at  their 
River  Cafe  in  London: Jersey  cowboy 
Frank  DeCaro:  Peggy  Guggenheim  with  Antoine 
Pevsner's  Surface  Developpable,  circa  1947. 


torture  to  grow  up  gay  or  in  New  Jersey.  A  Lifetime  Burning 
in  Every  Moment  (HarperCollins)  is  a  collection  of  critic 
ALFRED  KAZIN'S  journal  entries  from  the  30s  to  the  present. 
LAURENCE  RUMNEY'S  Peggy  Guggenheim:  A  Collector's  Al- 
bum (Flammarion)  features  her  arty  snapshots  and  also  those 
of  pals  such  as  Man  Ray  and  Berenice  Abbott.  PETER  GENT 
coaches  an  amateur  baseball  team  in  Tlie  Last  Magic  Summer: 
A  Season  with  My  Son  (Morrow).  Only  the  die-hard  remain  in 
post-apocalyptic  Los  Angeles  in  STEVE  ERICKSON  S  har- 
rowingly  amusing  Amnesiascope  (Henry  Holt).  The 
voice  of  the  late  DAVID  WOJNAROWICZ,  radical 
writer-artist  and  nemesis  of  Jesse  Helms,  springs 
eternal  in  The  Waterfront  Journals  (Grove),  a  col- 
lection of  his  unsettling  monologues.  Sex  is  the 
engine  that  pulls  STOKES  HOWELL'S  love  train  of 
short  stories,  Tlie  Sex- 
ual Life  of  Savages 
and  Other  Stories  (St. 
Martin's).  And,  final- 
ly, you  can  exhale: 
TERRY  MCMILLAN  is 
back  with  a  sassy 
new  novel,  How  Stel- 
la Got  Her  Groove 
Back  (Viking).  Phew. 

— ELISSA  SCHAPPELL 


^S 


10 


VANITY  FAIR/JUNE  1996 


SERENGETL  Available  at  Sunglass  Hut.  LensCrafters,  Pearle  Vision  01  call  I  800.  525. 


4001 


anities 


Dennis  I  Society 


Dennis  Rodman  is  a  Chicago  Bull  in  a  china  shop 


fter  head-butting  a  referee,  Chicago  Bull  Dennis 
Rodman  recently  received  the  third-longest  sus- 
pension in  N.B.A.  history— more  than  living  up 
to  the  title  of  his  new  autobiography.  Bad  as  I 
Wanna  Be  (Delacorte).  george  wayne  finds 
out  exactly  how  bad. 


George  Wayne:  Naturally,  for  me,  the  most  interesting 
chapter  in  your  new  hook  was  the  one  entitled  "Sex. " 
"Fifty  percent  of  life  in  the  NBA.  is  sex,"  you  say. 
Explain. 

Dennis  Rodman:  Sex  is  a  very  integral  part  of  sports 
in  general.  And  especially  if  you  are  a  sin- 
gle professional  athlete.  It's  very  easy  to 
jump  headfirst  into  the  pool  of  lust. 
G.W.  What's  the  most  outrageous  sexual 
proposal  you've  ever  had? 
D.R.  I  get  women  who  want  me  to 
tag-team  them,  and  stuff  like  that 
But  I'm  very  polite  about  all  of  it. 
I  just  say  "No,  thank  you." 
G.W.  Then  there  is  Chapter  10  . . . 
D.R.  Madonna. 

G.W.  Kissing  and  telling  on  Madon- 
na. Tina's  not  really  cool.  Madonna 
is  going  to  have  a  major  fussy  fit 
when  she  finds  Chapter  10  is  all 
about  her  sex  life  with  Dennis  Rodman 
D.R.  I  look  at  it  like  this:  Madonna  has 
made  a  lot  of  people  look  good,  and  a  lot 
of  people  look  bad.  She  didn't  give  a  fuck 
who  she  hurt  in  the  beginning.  I  wasn't  try- 
ing to  hurt  Madonna  in  the  book.  I  was 
just  describing  what  it  was  like  going  out 
with  Madonna. 

G.W.  Were  her  first  words  to  you  really 
"Are  you  going  to  eat  my  pussy  first'.'  I  like 
someone  to  eat  me  out  and  get  me  loose.  " 
D.R.  Those  were  her  fucking  first  words 
when  I  was  at  the  house.  I'm  not  gonna 
lie  about  it.  I  could  have  said  a  lot  more. 
G.W.  /  guess  she'll  get  over  it.  Did  you 
guys  do  it  doggy-style? 
D.R.  Oh,  shit!  You  better  ask  me  an- 
other question.  I  can't  go  that  deep 
G.W.  Yes,  you  can  go  there,  darling. 
D.R.  No  way-it'd  be  all  over. 
G.W.  She  is  probably  going  to  saw 
"That  Dennis  Rodman,  he  has  the 
perfect  nickname— the  Worm.  " 
D.R.  I  don't  think  so. 


112 


G.W.  Being  snubbed  by  the  all-star  team  and  the  U.S.  Olym- 
pic team-does  that  bother  you? 

D.R.  I've  been  playing  great  for  the  last  four  years  and  have 
not  been  picked  for  the  All-Star  Game.  It's  a  crying  shame 
that  you've  got  hardworking  people  in  this  league 
who  could  easily  make  it.  But  you  pick  the  people 
that  are  supposedly  the  Good  Samaritans.  And  I 
think  that's  wrong. 

G.W.  It's  an  amazing  story:  you,  Dennis  Rodman, 

have  gone  from  being  a  kleptomaniac  janitor  at  the 

Da  Has -Fort  Worth  airport  to  star  basketball  player 

screwing  the  daylights  out  of  the  biggest  female 

star  in  the  world. 

D.R.  Yeah,  you're  right.  That  was 

never  my  plan  in  life.  My  plan  was 

to  live  life  like  any  other  normal 

human  being,  going  to  work  nine 

to  five. 

G.W.  Tliese  blonde  women  that  you 
tend  to  favor,  do  they  shriek  with 
delight  when  they  see  the  size  of 
your  shaft? 

D.R.  You  can  ask  the  girl  I'm  go- 
ing out  with.  She  seems  pretty 
happy  with  the  bob-gun. 
G.W.  You  seem  like  the  kind  of 
guy  who  would  own  a  cock  ring. 
D.R.  I  had  my  balls  pierced,  but  I 
got  kicked  there  in  a  game,  and  I  had 
take  it  out. 
G.W.  You  admit  to  being  sexually  con- 
fused, but  you  've  said  you  've  never  expe- 
rienced man-to-man  sex.  But  even  if  you 
did.  I  don '/  think  you  would  be  man 
enough  to  admit  it. 

D.R.  Excuse  me— I  guess  you  don't 
know  me  that  well.  I  have  no  shame 
with  my  game  like  that.  That  oppor- 
tunity has  not  arrived  yet,  but  there  is 
nothing  wrong  with  being  who  you 
want  to  be. 

G.W.  And  your  cross-dressing  is  really 

not  a  gimmick?  You  grew  up  in  a 

house  full  of  women,  and  you  really 

do  enjoy  wearing  women 's  clothing? 

D.R.  When  the  mood  strikes  me,  of 

course  I  do. 

G.W.  Do  you  wear  panties? 
D.R.  I  don't  wear  underwear, 
period.  I  free -ball,  even  every  day 
in  practice. 


VANITY  FAIR/JUNE  1996 


The  crowds  outside  Vanity  Fair's  third  Oscar  party  were 
bathed  in  colored  lights,  left,  Oscar  winners  Kevin  Spacey  and 
Nicolas  Cage  with  Patricia  Arquette.  Right,  Elisabeth  Shue. 


The  stars'  trails  cross  at  VE  s  annual  Oscar  party 


n  Los  Angeles,  Oscar  night  is  a  lot  like  Christmas.  The 
streets  are  deserted  as  families  gather  together  and 
everyone  is  a  little  nicer  than  usual.  A  few  lucky  folks 
even  get  just  what  they've  always  wanted.  At  Mortons 
for  Vanity  Fairs  third  annual  Oscar  party  it  seemed  as 
if  the  only  person  not  clutching  a  gold  statuette-  for 
the  first  time  in  recent  memory— was  Tom  Hanks. 
Among  the  winners  were  Nicolas  Cage  and  Mel  Gib- 
son, who  grasped  an  Oscar  firmly  in  each  hand,  like  a 
pair  of  six-shooters.  Gibson  has  that  quality  Emerson 


identified  as  the  hallmark  of  a  people's  champion:  he's  able 
to  withstand  the  gaze  of  millions.  Among  the  gazed-at 
were  Anthony  Hopkins,  Jessica  Lange,  Chris  O'Donnell, 
Jay  Leno,  Barry  Diller,  Diane  Von  Furstenberg.  Vendela, 
Stephen  Dorff,  Tim  Roth,  Rita  Wilson,  Betsy  Blooming- 
dale,  Alicia  Silverstone,  David  Arquette,  Skeet  Ulrich, 
Joe  Roth,  Ron  Meyer,  Peter  Chernin,  Gwyneth  Paltrow, 
Alexandre  and  Alexandra  von  Furstenberg,  and  Tony 
Curtis.  It  was  a  starry,  starry  night,  as  befits  L.A.'s  most 
holy  evening  of  the  year.  —toby  young 


Tom  and  an  unjustly  unnominated  Nicole  dazzle  and  sparkle 
Billy  and  Audrey  Wilder  get  ready  for  their  close-up. 


Dominick  Dunne  greets  Sidney  Poitier,  and  Kelly  Lynch 
gets  smiley  with  John  Travolta  and  Kelly  Preston. 


SZ3500 


SPO 


N  PHOTO 


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YOU'RE  WRONG. 

I've  made  the  same  mistake  as  the  show  organizers  —  assuming  the  man  was  a 
Sessional  photographer  merely  because  of  his  Olympus"J  camera.  While  it's  true 
ny  professionals  use  an  Olympus  as  their  snapshot  camera,  this  doesn't  mean 
srybody  with  an  Olympus  is  a  pro.  This  confusion  affects  all  Olympus  owners 
this  case,  an  innocent  man  was  ushered  to  the  very  front  row  of  a  fashion 
>W  —  a  disorienting  experience.  Remember,  pros  choose  Olympus  because  they're 
fp/e  to  use  and  take  amazing  snapshots,  but  anybody  can  buy  one. 


INFINITY  SUPERZOOM  3500 


mm  Zoom,  4  autoi 
continuous  shootn 


OW  THE  BIG  SHOTS  TAKE  SNAPSHOTS: 


OLYMPUS 


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"You  look  so  serious  when  you're  reading,  Pet. 
Perhaps  a  Tanqueray  Sterling  Vodka  is  in  order." 


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(Continued from  page  1 14) 


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i 


/ 


f 

Left  to  right,  Sandy  Gallin,  Raquel  Welch,  Beverly  D'Angelo, 

Arnold  Kopelson,  and  Tim  Allen.  Man  of  the  night  Mel  Gibson  bearing 

dual  statuettes. 


Gucci,  Gucci,  coo:  Chynna  Phillips, 
Billy  Baldwin,  and  Tom  Ford. 


Top,  two  artists:  David  Hockney  greets 
Joan  Collins.  Above,  actor-authors 
Richard  E.  Grant  and  Sandra  Bernhard. 


Director  Stanley  Kramer  enters,  accompanied 
by  his  wife,  Karen.  Liza  Minnelli  comes  in  with 
a  flourish.  Liam  Neeson  towers  warmly. 


Befow,  Roy  Lichtenstein 

and  S.  I.  Newhouse  Jr.  take  it  all  in. 


Sumner  time:  Sumner  Redstone  and 

his  wife,  Phyllis,  do  a  lap  before  committing  to  a  location, 

while  Quincy  Jones  and  Stevie  Wonder  revel  in  the  pleasures  of  stasis. 


Three  amigos:  Kurt  Russell, 
Robert  Zemeckis,  and 
Tom  Hanks,  who,  for  once, 
isn't  clutching  an  Oscar. 


VANITY  FAIR/JUNE  1996 


.17 


SUCCESS 


T'S    A 


GAME. 


VANITY  FAIR 

JUNE     1996 


In  Bosnia's  muddy,  mine-infested  combat  zones, 

young  American  soldiers  are  learning  the  trials — and  the  rewards — of  keeping 

an  uncertain  peace.  At  the  base  known  as  Shark  City,  near  Tuzla, 

HARRY  BENSON  documents  the  daily  life  of  Echo  Company's  sappers 

and  sharpshooters,  its  captains  and  its  cooks 


From  left:  Echo  Company's  Lieutenant  Paul  Dill,  24,  of  Annandale,  Virginia,  and  Sergeant  Howard  Hartung, 
25.  from  Chicago.  Home  now  is  Shark  City,  in  the  Confrontational  Zone. 


elcome  to  Tuzla.  It's  like  Pittsburgh  with- 
out a  football  team." 

The  jokey,  unmistakably  American  voice 
of  a  U:S.  soldier  is  one  of  the  first  sounds 
that  greets  us  as  we  step  off  the  C-130  mil- 
itary transport  that  has  brought  us  from  Frank- 
furt to  Bosnia.  It  is  the  dead  of  winter  and 


conditions  are  abominable;  everywhere  there  is  mud,  bore- 
dom, and  waiting.  There  is  danger,  but  genuine  action 
seems  rare.  Often  it  is  just  dull.  Morale,  however,  seems 
a  throwback  to  some  earlier  age  of  honorable  inten- 
tions. The  nihilism  of  the  psychedelic  Vietnam  days 
is  forgotten,  but  few  of  the  male  and  female  soldiers 
are  older  than  26  or  so;  they  weren't  even  born  at  the 


121 


"You  look  so  serious  when  you're  reading,  Pet. 
Perhaps  a  Tanqueray  Sterling  Vodka  is  in  order.' 


v-^VI 


/*■ 


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1: 


TAGHeuer 

SWISS  MADE  SINCE  1860 


tf 


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jclfc. 


The  6000  Series  in 
18-karat  gold  and  steel. 
Water-resistant  to 
200  meters. 


U- 


■;    . 


VANITY  FAIR 

JUNE     1996 


In  Bosnia's  muddy,  mine-infested  combat  zones, 

young  American  soldiers  are  learning  the  trials — and  the  rewards — of  keeping 

an  uncertain  peace.  At  the  base  known  as  Shark  City,  near  Tuzla, 

HARRY  BENSON  documents  the  daily  life  of  Echo  Company's  sappers 

and  sharpshooters,  its  captains  and  its  cooks 


From  left:  Echo  Company's  Lieutenant  Paul  Dill,  24,  of  Annandale,  Virginia,  and  Sergeant  Howard  Hartung, 
25,  from  Chicago.  Home  now  is  Shark  City,  in  the  Confrontational  Zone. 


elcome  to  Tuzla.  It's  like  Pittsburgh  with- 
out a  football  team." 

The  jokey,  unmistakably  American  voice 
of  a  U.S.  soldier  is  one  of  the  first  sounds 
that  greets  us  as  we  step  off  the  C-130  mil- 
itary transport  that  has  brought  us  from  Frank- 
furt to  Bosnia.  It  is  the  dead  of  winter  and 


conditions  are  abominable;  everywhere  there  is  mud,  bore- 
dom, and  waiting.  There  is  danger,  but  genuine  action 
seems  rare.  Often  it  is  just  dull.  Morale,  however,  seems 
a  throwback  to  some  earlier  age  of  honorable  inten- 
tions. The  nihilism  of  the  psychedelic  Vietnam  days 
is  forgotten,  but  few  of  the  male  and  female  soldiers 
are  older  than  26  or  so;  they  weren't  even  born  at  the 


r 

I 

li 


I 


I 


*^#*. 


•     <l*M 


Sergeant  Litchelle  Brown 

(Second  Battalion, 

227th  Aviation  Armored 

Division)  is  a 

25-year-old  mother 

of  two.  The 

for  her  battal* 

says  that  he 

are  legend.  /?/' 

American  paratrooper 

stands  in  the  burned-out 

>  »shell  of  what  was 

once  a  country  home 

and  is  now  an 

army  lookout  post. 


time  of  the  Tet  offensive.  You  may 
understand  intellectually  that  wars 
are  waged  by  the  very  young,  but  when 
you  actually  confront  the  youth  of 
these  soldiers,  the  shock  is  huge. 

We  wait  at  the  airport  for  about 
five  hours,  until  a  paratrooper  takes 
us  to  the  barracks,  an  old  warehouse 
in  Tuzla  where  we  spend  the  night. 
The  next  morning  we  drive  into  what 
they  call  the  Confrontational  Zone, 
where  the  Serbs  and  the  Croats  are 
separated  by  perhaps  a  mile.  Ameri- 
cans stand  guard,  awaiting  relief  from 
the  Russians.  The  roads  are  wicked- 
conniving  and  treacherous.  The  weath- 
er and  the  labyrinthine  mountain  roads 
complicate  all  transportation.  As  we 
approach  Shark  City,  where  the  Amer- 
ican soldiers  are  stationed,  the  evi- 
dence of  war  increases.  Little  shelled-out 
houses  stand  deserted,  though  bikes  re- 
main in  front  of  many.  Everything 
looks  as  if  it  (Continued  on  page  129) 


Light  breaks 

here  about  7:30  and 
mornings  are  dull, 
not  bright. 
Daytime  and  evening 
don't  look  much 
it 


123 


There  is  much  talk  in  Shark  City  of  hidden  mines.  All  on 


■^^^^r. 


Sergeant  Brian  Ramback,  23  (Angola, 
New  York),  and  Private  First  Class 
Joseph  Bermudez,  27  (Ocala,  Florida), 
with  a  60-millimeter  mortar. 


r'JM 


"tf" 


Californian 

Chris  Cottingham, 

22.  a  gunner  specialist, 

stops  for  a  Coke. 

His  vehicle  is  a  Hunivee; 

his  machine  gun, 

a  .50-caliber  M2. 


^f 

■    / 

"&*       — •" 

K 

13 

~  .*#* 


Medic  Jennifer  Kuklish, 
20,  from  Redding,  California, 
holds  a  photo  of  her 
boyfriend,  who  is  also  in  Bosnia 


Sergeant  Tracy  Miklas, 

31,  Specialist 

Steven  Kerrigan, 

21,  and  Private 

Isaac  Nadeau,  19,  with 

photos  from  home. 


Sergeant  Aaron  Horn, 

25,  a  marksman 

from  North  Carolina, 

salutes  his  fiancee, 

Ann,  and  his  son, 

Aaron  Michael. 


RuUimWmllTifln 

mm 

Specialist  Jason 

Chestnut,  20,  of  Tampa, 

Florida,  and  Private 

First  Class  Robert  Bond, 

24,  from  Petersburg, 

New  Jersey. 


I 


■»i 


Corporal  Steven  Redd,  21, 
with  a  photo  of  his 
girlfriend  in  California,  whose 
name  he  will  not  reveal. 


K 


*pm 


* 


!v 


"Welcome  to  Tuzla ,"  said  the  jokey,  unmistakably  American  voice.  "I 


-;    .*> 


Combat  engineers  of  the  SETAF  Infantry 
Brigade  on  a  Russian-made  T-34  tank: 
Lieutenant  Kip  Korth,  Specialist  IVlichacI 
Bkinchard,  Sergeant  Orlando  Tagaluquin, 
Private  Robert  Hedge,  Sergeant  Jeffrey 
Berry,  Lieutenant  Joseph  Burgess, 
and  Lieutenant  Terrence  Alger  (3/325th 
Airborne  Battalion  Combat  Team). 


M^-^ 

V 

- 

(e  Pittsburgh  without  a 


(Continued  from  page  J 23)  had  been 
interrupted  on  a  moment's  notice. 

The  tedium  is  broken  by  the  talk 
in  Shark  City  of  hidden  mines.  One 
soldier  recently  found  a  land  mine 
outside  his  tent.  Even  when  you 
step  groggily  into  the  night  air  to  go 
to  the  bathroom,  you  must  remem- 
ber to  keep  your  wits  about  you. 
All  over  Shark  City,  there  is  a  litany 
of  warnings:  "Walk  where  someone 
else  has  walked,"  advice  not  easily 
dismissed.  For  safety's  sake,  you  place 
your  feet  into  the  same  prints  that 
friends  have  made  days  before.  Or 
weeks.  It  is  comforting  to  know 
your  buddy  has  blazed  the  trail.  There 
are  constant  reminders  not  to  pick 
up  anything,  not  even  the  tiny  pieces 
of  rubber,  sponges,  or  other  debris 
lying  everywhere. 

n      t  the  depth  of  the  winter, 
^m      the  temperature  was  15  de- 
IH     grees  below  zero.  Anything 
I B     outside  froze  immediately,  the 
I  B    second  that  the  air  touched 
LJB   it.  I  remember  this  as  I  lis- 
I     B  ten  to  the  Russians  com- 
I      B  panng  their  weapons  with 
I       B  those  of  the  Americans.  The 
U.S.  has  planes  which  can  pinpoint 
the  source  of  an  enemy  attack  and 
launch  a  counteroffensive  before  the  en- 
emy shell  hits  its  target.  The  Russians, 
however,  do  not  speak  of  the  high- 
tech  glories  of  their  war  machine. 
They  boast  about  their  boots,  which 
are  seamless  and  carefully  insulated. 
(The  soldiers  aren't  just  bragging; 
footwear  has  been  a  priority  with  the 
Russians  since  W.W.  II,  when  the 
Germans  stole  boots,  well  made  and 
warm,  off  the  dead  of  Stalin's  army.) 
The  French  have  the  best  food- 
beef,  crepes  Suzette,  pate— and  the 
Americans  exchange  rations  with  them. 
So  the  French  have  food,  the  Rus- 
sians have  boots,  and  the  Americans 
have  guns  and  a  kind  of  buoyant 
manner  that  seems  out  of  place  in 
this  gray  terrain. 

I  have  taken  photographs  in  many 
theaters  of  war.  Bosnia  appears  to 
me  to  be  a  return  to  an  earlier  day, 
more  like  Korea  or  the  World  Wars 

129 


than  Desert  Storm  or  Panama.  Some 
of  the  soldiers,  who  are  mostly  beige- 
colored,  say  they  haven't  had  a  show- 
er in  five  weeks.  They  use  bottled 
water  for  spit  baths.  The  latrines  ap- 
pear to  have  been  consigned  from 
the  Romans;  in  an  age  of  computer 
weaponry  and  high-tech  tanks,  we're 
still  making  army  bathrooms  out  of 
bits  of  wood  nailed  together.  You  hang 
your  coat  on  a  nail,  which  doesn't 
hold;  your  coat  falls  and  gets  soaked 
in  the  urine-drenched  mud.  I  came 
out  complaining.  The  soldier  outside 
said,  "I  try  to  avoid  it  as  much  as  I 
can."  I  was  embarrassed  when  I  dis- 
covered that  the  G.I.  was  female. 

Light  breaks  here  about  7:30  and 
mornings  are  dull,  not  bright.  Day- 
time and  evening  don't  look  much  dif- 
ferent—this is  a  war  of  black-and-white 
images.  There  are  soldiers  in  the  trench- 
es 24  hours  a  day:  sharpshooters  stand 
guard  against  snipers;  a  sharpshooter 
must  be  capable  of  hitting  a  target 
dead  on  from  300  meters. 

Not  so  long  ago  they  were  just  nor- 
mal American  kids  from  all  over  the 
country.  Most  are  not  wealthy  enough 
to  have  traveled  extensively  before.  This 
is  their  first  taste  of  a  world  beyond 
their  own.  They  seem  remarkably  uni- 
fied; there  is  no  dissent,  only  convic- 
tion. They  have  seen  the  devastation 
now,  and  appear  to  have  no  doubt 
that  they  are  doing  what  should  be 
done.  Of  course,  they  are  eager  to  go 
home.  When  asked  if  they  have  pic- 
tures of  their  girlfriends,  boyfriends, 
wives,  husbands,  or  children,  they  reach 
inside  their  helmets  or  deep  into  their 
pockets.  Everyone  has  a  photo.  No 
one,  it  seems,  came  alone. 

I  am  as  glad  to  leave  Shark  City 
as  the  soldiers  will  be.  Tuzla  is  a  lux- 
ury hotel  after  Shark  City.  On  my 
last  night  there,  it  poured  rain.  Every- 
thing in  the  tent  got  soaking  wet.  I 
got  up  angry  to  dry  my  sleeping  bag 
and  clothes  by  the  heat  of  the  stove. 
One  of  the  soldiers  woke  up  and  told 
me  they  were  all  used  to  it— the  rain, 
that  is.  They  didn't  even  bother  dry- 
ing things  off  anymore. 

If  they  did,  he  said,  they  would 
never  get  any  sleep  at  all.  □ 

130 


SPOTLIGHT 


First  Action 
Heroine 


mong  the  voca- 


tional skills  of  model  turned  actress  Rene  Russo  is 
the  ability  to  dissemble.  "I'm  a  high-school  drop- 
out," she  says,  shrieking  with  laughter.  "Christ, 
when  I'm  playing  a  doctor  it's  real  acting,  lemme 
tell  ya." 

While  most  former  cover  girls  her  age  are  locked 
in  divorce  battles  with  their  financier  husbands,  Rus- 
so is  engaged  in  hand-to-hand  combat  with  gunrun- 
ners, kidnappers,  and  virus-carrying  monkeys  in 
some  of  the  best  action  thrillers  of  the  decade.  "Pret- 
ty damned  good  leads  are  being  written  for  women 
in  that  action  vein,"  she  says,  "and  you  can  make  a 
lot  of  money  doing  it,  so  it  ain't  a  bad  way  to  go." 

One  of  the  reasons  Russo  is  in  such  demand  is  Hol- 
lywood's need  to  find  actresses  who  won't  make  its 
graying  troupe  of  leading  men  look  like  pedophiles. 
So  far,  she  has  paired  off  with  Clint  Eastwood  (65)  in 
in  the  Line  of  Fire  and  Dustin  Hoffman  (58)  in  Out- 
break, though  her  real-life  husband,  screenwriter 
Dan  Gilroy,  is  only  36.  "Because  those  two  movies 
were  successful,"  she  confides,  "people  have  this 
idea  that  I  work  with  older  men,  but  I  have  to  tell  you 
that  anyone  35  and  over  is  my  contemporary"  In 
last  fall's  hit  Get  Shorty,  Russo  rejected  the  Hollywood 
legend  she  was  teamed  up  with— Gene  Hackman 
(66)-for  John  Travolta,  who  at  42  is  her  own  age. 
This  summer  she's  appearing  opposite  Kevin  Costner 
in  Tin  Cup  and  Mel  Gibson  in  Ransom. 

"I  have  that  street  thing  because  I  was  raised  on 
the  street,"  she  says  about  her  Annie  Oakley  persona. 
"I  was  kinda  wild.  That's  who  I  am."       —TOBY  YOUNG 

Photograph  by  FIROOZ  ZAHEDI 


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RENE 
RUSSO 

"Z  have 

that  street 

thing." 


Even  as  lie  aims  to  go  higher, 

faster,  farther,  better,  Tom  Cruise  has 

also  learned  to  play— with  his 

Pitts  S-2B  biplane,  his  two  Porsches, 

and  his  two  children.  As 

Mission:  Impossible,  Cruise's  $64  million 

debut  as  producer-star,  opens 

this  month,  JENNET  CONANT  gets  the 

first-ever  joint  interview  with 

him  and  his  wife,  Nicole  Kidman,  who 

reveal  the  dynamics  of 

Hollywood's  most  riveting  double  act 


■'Sa&KM 


i 


Photographs  by  ANNIE  LEIBOVITZ  •  Styled  by  KIM  MEEHAN 


A  MAN  FOR  ALL 

SEASONS 

Hits  from  Risky  Business 

and  Days  of  Thunder  to 

Born  on  the  Fourth  of  July 

and  The  Firm  have  boosted 

Cruise's  total  box-office 

take  beyond 

the  billion-dollar  mark.  So 

who  needs  an  umbrella? 


know  my  limita- 
tions as  a  person," 
Tom  Cruise  is  tell- 
ing me. 

Limitations?  I 
smile  politely.  He's 
kidding,  right?  We 
all  know  about 
limitations,  and 
Cruise,  who  rock- 
eted to  stardom  at 
21  and  now,  18 
movies  later,  has 
a  record  NASA  can 
only  dream  of, 
doesn't  have  any. 
And  he  knows  it. 
But  he's  being 
modest.  "I'm  not 
one  of  these  peo- 
ple who  is  good  at  one-liners,"  he 
says.  "Some  interviewers  look  at  me 
like  ' That's  the  answer?'  They  ask, 
'What  kind  of  tree  do  you  want  to 
be?'  And  I  don't  know."  Cruise's 
tone  is  sheepish,  but  the  blue-green 
eyes  are  confident,  amused.  "There's 
times  you  wish  you  were  Robin  Wil- 
liams and  you  could  take  off  into 
other  areas,"  he  adds,  shaking  his  head, 
"you  know,  talk  really,  really  fast  and 
be  really  funny." 

Cruise  is  trying  to  convince  me 
that  he  is  a  lousy  interview.  That's  why 
he  takes  reporters  for  hair-raising 
spins  in  his  aerobatic  plane  or  out 
racing  in  one  of  his  two  Porsches;  he 
discovered  a  long  time  ago  that  speed 
is  a  good  distraction.  But  he's  not 
taking  me  on  any  wild-goose  chase. 
And  I'm  far  from  worried.  Cruise 
never  disappoints— he  always  delivers 
exactly  what  is  expected  of  him.  At 
the  least.  Despite  his  relative  youth, 
he's  a  pro.  "A  consummate  profes- 
sional" is  how  Paula  Wagner,  his 
longtime  agent  and  partner  in  Cruise/ 
Wagner  Productions,  describes  him. 
So  he  sits  here  in  his  cool  beige 
Paramount  office  on  a  Saturday  morn- 
ing, sporting  jeans,  a  battered  sweat- 
er, and  day-old  stubble,  dutifully 
pumping  quarters  into  the  publicity 
machine. 

He  points  to  the  poster  from  Ernest 
Lehman's  classic  Sweet  Smell  of  Suc- 
cess hanging  on  the  wall  above  the 
sofa.  It  is  signed  by  the  stars:  Burt 
Lancaster  has  scrawled,  "You  got  it, 
kid,"  and  below  Tony  Curtis's  name, 
"To  T.C.  from  T.C." 


"Do  you  know  that  one?"  Cruise 
inquires  innocently,  referring  to  the 
movie,  a  corrosive  portrait  of  the  en- 
tertainment PR.  game.  He  perks  up 
at  the  hint  of  a  challenge;  his  eyes 
glint  with  mischief.  I  had  asked  for 
it.  I  had  asked  him  to  be  himself, 
and  now  he  isn't  holding  back.  Or  is 
he?  I  smile.  He  smiles— a  dazzling  show 
of  charm  and  teeth. 

Settling  in,  his  arms  spanning  the 
top  of  the  sofa,  boots  resting  on  the 
edge  of  the  coffee  table,  Cruise  appears 
completely  relaxed.  He  seems,  for  a 
famously  guarded  actor,  to  be  travel- 
ing rather  light.  There's  no  entourage. 
No  studio  minions  proffering  itiner- 
aries and  Evian.  Not  even  as  much  as 
a  peep  from  his  L/for-publicist,  Pat 
Kingsley.  He  dialed  me  directly  to 
figure  out  where  we  would  meet,  and 
I  asked  to  see  his  production  compa- 
ny, a  plush  suite  of  offices  once  oc- 
cupied by  Howard  Hughes. 

Cruise  isn't  nearly  as  reclusive  as 
the  legendary  Hughes,  but,  for  an  ac- 
tor with  such  a  big,  honest  presence 
on-screen,  he  can  be  surprisingly  elu- 
sive. Behind  the  casual  approach  and 
boyish  demeanor,  he  has  earned  a 
reputation  for  being  fiercely  protec- 
tive of  his  wife,  Nicole  Kidman,  the 
star  of  To  Die  For,  and  their  two  chil- 
dren, and  for  micromanaging  every 
aspect  of  his  extraordinary  career  and 
image.  With  a  combined  domestic 
box-office  gross  of  more  than  $1  bil- 
lion. Cruise's  movies  aren't  small- 
time affairs,  and  as  time  has  passed, 
he  has  assumed  more  and  more  con- 
trol of  the  very  big  business  based  on 
his  own  appeal.  His  metamorphosis 
from  boy  star  to  grown-up  producer 
reaches  its  apotheosis  this  month  with 
the  release  of  Mission:  Impossible,  a  $64 
million  action  picture  which  he  stars 
in  and  which  marks  his  debut  as  a 
hands-on  producer. 

"It's  not  really  about  control,"  he 
protests.  "It's  another  creative  out- 
let. After  all  the  pictures  I've  made, 
I've  learned  how  to  do  things  effi- 
ciently. When  I  first  started  as  an  ac- 
tor, I  always  knew  one  day  that  I 
wanted  to  produce  my  own  movies, 
and  direct,"  he  continues.  "It  just 
comes  down  to  loving  movies.  On  Mis- 
sion: Impossible,  I  was  like  a  kid  in 
a  candy  shop.  I  felt  like  I  was  10 
years  old  again,  back  in  the  theaters. 
'O.K.,  what  would   I   like   to  see? 


What  would  be  the  coolest  thing?' " 

Cruise  still  looks  like  a  college 
kid,  but  at  33  he  has  moved  far  be- 
yond Joel  Goodsen,  the  dancing,  un- 
derwear-clad adolescent  he  played  to 
perfection  in  Risky  Business.  He  is 
no  longer  everyone's  eager-to-please 
kid  brother,  happy  just  to  be  tagging 
along  with  co-stars  such  as  Paul  New- 
man and  Dustin  Hoffman.  Cruise  has 
grown  up  and  taken  charge,  and  as 
he  heads  into  the  next  bend  in  his  ca- 
reer, he  is  having  the  time  of  his  life. 
"He's  like  a  champion,"  says  his  bud- 
dy Sean  Penn,  who  met  Cruise  in 
1980  when  they  were  both  cast  in  Taps, 
their  first  big  break.  "His  enthusiasm 
for  what  he  does  seems  exactly  what 
it  was  then,  but  he's  growing  all  the 
time.  He  was  a  major  wrestler  in 
high  school,  and  he's  like  an  athlete 
in  the  way  he  attacks  work.  He's  in- 
credibly focused." 

"He  wants  to  win,"  says  Terry  Semel, 
co-chairman  of  Warner  Bros.,  which 
is  producing  Stanley  Kubrick's  Eyes 
Wide  Shut,  Cruise's  next  film,  a  sexy 
thriller  in  which  he  will  co-star  with 
Kidman.  "He  brings  exactly  the  same 
amount  of  passion,  enthusiasm,  and  I 
commitment  to  everything  he  does, . 
whether  the  two  of  us  are  playing 
tennis  or  working  on  a  project.  It's  I 
always  no  holds  barred.  And  he  has 
boundless  energy,  he  can  go  for  hours. 
He'll  be  out  there  playing  tennis  or 
doing  takes  after  everyone  has  gone : 
to  dinner." 

"It's  all  about  competition,  buti 
with  himself,  not  against  anyone  else,"  ' 
confirms  screenwriter-director  Robert 
Towne,  who  worked  with  Cruise  on 
Days  of  Thunder  and  wrote  the  final 
draft  of  Mission:  Impossible.  "It's  al- 
ways higher,  faster,  farther,  better 
with  him.  Both  as  a  jock  and  a  little 
bit  of  a  dreamer.  He's  a  man  who  al- 
ways believes  his  reach  can  extendi 
beyond  his  grasp.  And  so  far  he's 
been  right." 

"Everything  I  do,  my  name's  on  it, 
so  I  want  it  to  be  good,"  says  Cruise, 
sounding  more  self-assured  than  the 
young  man  you  think  you  know  from 
all  his  old  coming-of-age  movies.  "I 
don't  like  going  to  bad  movies.  And 
I  sure  as  hell  don't  like  making  them," 
he  adds,  laughing.  "I'm  going  to  work 
my  ass  off  and  do  whatever  it  takes- 
blood,  sweat,  and  tears— to  make  the 
best  movie  I  can." 


134 


(.m 


ission:  Impossible 
is,  as  Cruise  puts  it, 
"a  big,  big  movie." 
Filmed  on  location 
in  Prague,  Lon- 
don, and  Virginia, 
it  features  an  in- 
ternational cast,  a 
superb  troupe  of  actors  including  Jon 
Voight,  Vanessa  Redgrave,  and  Em- 
manuel le  Beart  as  the  spy  who  catch- 
es the  eye  of  Cruise's  character.  It  is 
jam-packed  with  stunning  European 
scenery,  elaborate  sets,  sleek  gadgets, 
and  Bond-worthy  special  effects.  Cruise 
had  been  planning  to  cut  his  teeth  on 
a  more  modest  project,  but  zeroed  in 
on  the  high  concept  of  updating  the 
popular  60s  television  se- 
ries, an  idea  that  had  been 
kicking  around  Paramount 
for  10  years. 

The  stakes  were  high 
from  the  outset  because  it 
was  clear  the  movie  was  go- 
ing to  be  complicated  and 
costly.  "There  was  a  lot 
of  pressure  on  us  because, 
like  anything,  you  have  to 
prove  yourself,"  says  Paula 
Wagner,  a  former  CAA 
agent  who  left  Michael 
Ovitz's  old  empire  in  1992 
to  become  Cruise's  pro- 
ducing partner.  In  some 
sense  the  two  have  been  a 
team  for  15  years,  since 
the  day  he  walked  into  her 
little  cubbyhole  of  an  of- 
fice wearing  a  brown  cor- 
duroy jacket  (the  only  one 
he  owned)  and  greeted  her 
with  a  polite  "How  do 
you  do,  Miss  Wagner?" 

A  cool,  attractive  in- 
dustry executive,  the  48- 
year-old  Wagner— whom 
Cruise  affectionately  calls 
"Wags"— is  the  one  person 
whose  advice  the  actor  has 
consistently  relied  upon. 
She  put  him  together  with 
Oliver  Stone  (whom  she 
also  represented)  for  Born 
on  the  Fourth  of  July,  the 
movie  which  earned  Cruise  his  Acade- 
my Award  nomination.  She  now  shoul- 
ders the  primary  business  responsibilities 
for  their  production  company,  giving 
Cruise  the  freedom  to  concentrate  on 
his  roles.  The  trust  between  them  is 


'I'm  going 
to  work  my  ass 

off  and 
do  whatever 

it  takes- 
blood,  sweat, 
and  tears . . ." 


SHINER:  "It's  all  about  competition, 
but  with  himself,  not  against  anyone  else,"  says 

screenwriter-director  Robert  Towne, 
who  worked  with  Cruise  on  Days  of  Thunder 

and  wrote  the  final  draft  of  Mission- 
Impossible.  "He's  a  man  who  always  believes 
his  reach  can  extend  beyond  his  grasp. 
And  so  far  he's  been  right." 


evident  as  they  huddle  over  marketing 
plans  for  Mission:  Impossible,  their  heads 
side  by  side  as  they  speak  quickly  in 
shorthand.  Their  professional  relation- 
ship has  also  become  something  of  a 
family  affair:  Wagner's  husband,  Rick 
Nicita,  is  now  Cruise's  agent  at  CAA. 
"Zachary  will  be  representing  him  be- 
fore long,"  says  Wagner,  referring  to 
her  eight-year-old  son. 

The  Cruise-Wagner  partnership  sur- 
vived trial  by  fire  during  the  arduous 
production  of  the  movie,  when  every- 
thing that  could  go  wrong  did.  It  all 
began  when  the  advance  crew  first  jour- 
neyed to  Prague  and  failed  to  realize 
that  the  Eastern  European  interpre- 
tation of  "free-market  economy"  was 
^^^^     "Shake  down  the  Amer- 
icans  for   all   they   are 
worth."  While  no  one  at 
Paramount  is  saying  ex- 
actly how  much  the  bud- 
get got  trampled  during  the 
early  stages  of  production, 
it  was  enough  to  give  Cruise 
some  sleepless  nights  wor- 
rying about  how  he  was 
going  to  make  it  up  down 
the  line.  "Prague  ripped  us 
off,"  he  admits,  adding  dry- 
ly, "They're  still  getting 
used  to  democracy.  But  we 
also  made  some  mistakes 
with  our  negotiations  that 
we  have  to  take  responsi- 
bility for." 

Cruise  was  determined 
that  his  movie  not  be 
viewed  as  an  indulgent  star 
turn.  At  the  outset  he  es- 
tablished the  tone  by  de- 
ferring his  whole  salary. 
(He  will  receive  a  per- 
centage of  profits.)  He  also 
had  the  audacity  to  tell  the 
film's  director,  Brian  De 
Palma,  whose  spending  on 
The  Bonfire  of  the  Vani- 
ties is  legendary  in  the  in- 
dustry, "I've  thrown  in 
my  $20  million,  you'd 
better  throw  in  yours." 
He  wasn't  really  expecting 
De  Palma  to  give  up  his 
salary.  He  just  wanted  him  to  go  easy 
on  expensive  sets  and  spend  wisely.  But 
he  and  De  Palma  continued  to  butt 
heads  over  the  budget— among  other 
things— and  rumors  that  the  two  weren't 
getting  along  spread  like  wildfire 

135 


through  Hollywood.  Cruise  laughs  at 
the  talk  that  he  and  De  Palma  were 
seriously  at  odds.  But  he  makes  no 
apologies. 

"How  can  you  make  a  movie  and 
not  have  arguments?"  he  asks,  throw- 
ing up  his  hands.  "You're  with  this 
person  every  day,  it's  very  tense,  there's 
a  lot  of  money  at  stake,  and  you  get 
tired. 

"You  disagree  about  things,"  con- 
tinues Cruise,  who  says  he  had  no  prob- 
lem playing  the  heavy  with  the  director 
when  he  had  to.  As  producer,  he  says 
it  was  his  "responsibility  to  let  De 
Palma  know  the  movie  had  to  be  made 
for  a  price.  You've  got  to  get  to  the 
point  where  all  the  social  bullshit  goes 
away  and  it's  like,  O.K.,  you  and  I 
are  out  for  the  same  thing  here,  so 
let's  get  down  to  it.  It  was  fun,  and  it 
was  all  to  make  the  movie  better." 
(De  Palma,  who  still  appears  to  be  sulk- 
ing, did  not  return  calls  to  his  office.) 

ow  that  it's  over, 
Cruise  seems  to  rel- 
ish his  war  stories. 
He  credits  De  Pal- 
ma with  getting  them 
through  some  hairy 
moments.  "He's  the 
veteran  of  many  bat- 
tles," insists  Cruise  before  launching 
into  the  tale  of  his  own  close  en- 
counter with  the  Prague  police.  At 
the  end  of  a  tough  shoot  Cruise  was 
heading  back  to  his  trailer,  but  was 
stopped  by  an  officer  who  demanded 
to  see  his  papers.  "He  was  speaking 
in  Czech,"  recalls  the  star,  who  had 
visions  of  a  cement  holding  cell.  "I  said, 
'My  papers?  What  do  you  mean  my 
papers?  We're  in  Prague,  you  know. 
Communism  is  about  two  miles  back, 
pal.'  "  He  ended  up  cooling  his  heels 
in  a  car  while  a  police  chief  from  the 
set  was  brought  over  to  resolve  the 
situation.  "He  was  just  being  a  bully," 
says  Cruise,  shaking  his  head,  "but  it 
was  like  'What  else  can  happen?'" 

"Tom  was  really  under  the  gun 
with  this  picture,"  says  Robert  Towne. 
"It  was  the  kind  that  could  have  gone 
over  $100  million  just  by  batting  your 
eyelashes  the  wrong  way.  We  were 
working  in  countries  where  the  gov- 
ernments and  civil  service  were  bare- 
ly under  control,  with  a  script  that 
wasn't  finished,  and  a  lot  of  high-tech 
shit  to  shoot.  (Continued  on  page  182) 

136 


"You  got  it,  kid," 
wrote  Burt  Lancaster  on 

Cruise  s  poster  from 
Sweet  Smell  of  Success. 


HANGING  IN 

"'He's  like  a  champion," 

says  his  friend  Scan  Penn. 

But  Cruise,  seen  here 

on  the  Universal  lot:,  isn't 

just  resting  on  his  laurels. 

With  a  billion-dollar 

film  resume,  he's  gearing 

up  to  star  in  both 

Je'fry  Maguire  and  the 

Stanley  Kubrick 

thriller  Eyes  WideS'-'t. 

Susan  Thomases,  feared  Friend  of  Hillary, 

has  had  her  eye  blackened  by  two 

No.l  best-sellers.  Following  up  on  the  clues  to 

her  character  in  Primary  Colors  and  to 

her  Whitewater  involvement  in  Blood  Sport, 

JACOB  WEISBERG  figures  out  why 

Thomases  gets  voted  "least  popular" 

by  Clinton  insiders 


DESPE 

LEAKI 

SUSAN 


linton  haters  and  Clinton  defenders  alike 
spent  the  first  few  months  of  this  year 
in  rapt  anticipation  of  James  Stewart's 
two-year  investigation  into  the  murky 
doings  collectively  known  as  Whitewa- 
ter. But  when  Stewart's  book  Blood  Sport 
finally  appeared  in  late  March,  the  juici- 
est anecdote  didn't  take  place  in  Little 
Rock  or  Washington,  and  it  wasn't  about 
Bill  or  Hillary  Clinton.  It  was  about 
New  York  City  lawyer  Susan  Thomases, 
better  known  for  being  the  First  Lady's  closest  friend  and  most 
trusted  adviser.  Stewart  related  in  his  prologue  that  Thomases  had 
telephoned  him  out  of  the  blue  one  day  to  make  an  appointment  to 
discuss  something  too  sensitive  for  the  phone.  "She  said  a  client  of 
hers  wanted  a  story  about  them,"  Stewart  remembers.  "I  never  dreamed 

Photograph  by  ANNIE  LEIBOVITZ 


FIRST  FRIEND 


Susan  Thomases, 

photographed  in  Washington, 

D.C.  She  is  often  seen  as 

Hillary  Clinton's  alter  ego,  the 

First  Lady  without  the 

image-softening  makeover 

or  restraint. 


that  the  client  might  be  the  president  or  the  First  Lady." 

At  Thomases'  instigation,  Stewart  began  delving  into 
the  Whitewater  story.  But  as  he  got  to  work,  it  became 
clear  Thomases  was  still  trying  to  persuade  the  principals 
to  cooperate.  The  First  Lady,  hostile  as  ever  to  inquiring 
journalists,  was  disinclined  to  be  open.  In  the  end 
the  administration  did  not  assist  him  at  all.  Thus  did 
Thomases  single-handedly  launch  one  of  America's  most 
diligent  investigative  reporters  on  a  hostile  takeover  of  the 
Whitewater  story. 

Thomases  felt  contrite  enough  about  her  role  in  the 
project  to  issue  a  kind  of  apology  just  before  the  book 
was  published.  "We  all  make  mistakes,"  she  told  Newsweek. 
(Characteristically  she  later  told  friends  that  the  line  had 
been  misquoted.)  Thomases  also  denied  serving  as  a  ma- 
jor source  for  the  book.  However,  it  is  apparent  from 
context  that,  along  with  former  White  House  counsel 
Bernard  Nussbaum  and  Whitewater  partners  Jim  and  Su- 
san McDougal,  she  was  exactly  that. 

Thomases  might  ultimately  claim  vindication  for  her 
stratagem.  Though  it  paints  the  Clintons  as  ethically  lax, 
and  disingenuous  in  their  efforts  at  spin  control.  Blood 
Sport  does  not  contain  any  grand-jury-inspiring  revela- 
tions. The  book's  publication  may  mark  the  point  at  which 
the  scandal  began  finally  to  recede.  Robert  L.  Bartley, 
the  editor  of  Tlie  Wall  Street  Journal,  a  paper  whose  edi- 
torial page  has  approached  Whitewater  with  the  measured 
temper  of  a  rabid  pit  bull,  has  suggested  Thomases  should 
be  "far  from  distraught." 

Thomases,  however,  has  every  reason  to  be  distraught, 
not  so  much  for  what  the  book  has  done  to  the  Clintons 
but  for  the  additional  havoc  it  has  wrought  on  her  own 
troubled  reputation.  In  almost  every  episode  in  which 
Thomases  figures,  Stewart  provides  additional  evidence 
that  her  political  and  personal  judgment  is  lacking.  In  un- 
attributed  comments  clearly  traceable  to  her,  she  manages 
to  alienate  the  friends  of  the  late  White  House  deputy 
counsel  Vince  Foster,  implicate  the  First  Lady  in  a  cover- 
up  of  the  travel-office  scandal,  and  arouse  suspicions  that 
her  testimony  before  various  investigators  was  the  product 
of  crafty  spin  control. 

Others  in  Clinton's  circle  who  have  been  drawn  into 
the  Whitewater  vortex  have  tended  to  elicit  sympathy 
from  colleagues  over  their  catastrophic  legal  bills,  public 
embarrassment,  and  having  to  endure  the  ungrammatical 
abuse  of  Alfonse  D'Amato  (who  at  one  point  accused 
Thomases  of  raising  the  scandal's  level  of  "increduality"). 
In  Thomases'  case,  however,  expressions  of  sympathy 
have  been  few  and  far  between.  "Now  that  she's  down, 
the  pent-up  hostility  is  coming  out,"  says  one  adminis- 
tration official  who  describes  himself  as  more  sympathet- 
ic than  most.  "I've  actually  heard  people  say  they  hope 
she  gets  indicted  [for  perjury  before  the  Senate  White- 
water committee].  She  doesn't  have  a  big  reservoir  of 
goodwill  from  which  to  draw." 

Thomases  is  neither  the  first  Clinton  friend  to  be  eco- 
nomical with  the  truth  nor  the  only  one  to  alienate  col- 
leagues by  the  political  equivalent  of  poor  table  manners. 

140 


She  is  hardly  alone  in  her  outsize  ego  or  in  her  lack  of 
a  sense  of  humor.  What  is  unique  about  Thomases, 
though,  is  her  relationship  with  the  First  Lady.  As  prin- 
cipal strategist  James  Carville  used  to  say  during  the 
1992  campaign,  "She  has  the  juice,"  a  personal  relation- 
ship that  permits  her  to  phone  the  private  quarters  atl 
midnight  or  show  up  to  see  the  president  without  an  ap- 
pointment. This  intimacy  provokes  a  combination  of  jeal- 
ousy, genuine  concern  for  the  Clintons'  sake,  and  hostility, 
closely  related  to  that  which  is  directed  at  the  First  Lady. 

As  Thomases  herself  told  Lloyd  Grove 
of  The  Washington  Post,  "Hillary  and 
I  are  a  lot  alike  in  a  lot  of  ways."  Thom- 
ases is  Hillary  unsheathed,  the  First  Lady 
without  the  image-softening  make- 
over or  restraint.  And  it  is  this  curious 
quality  of  being  Hillary's  doppelgangen 
that  helps  to  explain  both  her  unpopu- 
larity among  White  House  insiders  and  the  outrage  she; 
has  stirred  elsewhere. 

Though  Rodham  was  raised  Republican  and  Methodist 
in  Park  Ridge,  Illinois,  and  Thomases  grew  up  Jewish  un- 
der the  influence  of  a  Democratic  mother  in  Engelwood. 
New  Jersey,  both  families  were  essentially  matriarchies  in 
which  the  only  daughters  outshone  their  brothers  (Rodham 
had  two,  Thomases  three)  in  brains,  ambition,  and  talent. 
Susan  is  just  like  her  mother,  says  one  family  friend,  a; 
"baleboosteh,"  a  Yiddish  word  which  means  just  about 
what  it  sounds  like  in  English.  Family  instilled  in  both  a 
strong  social  conscience,  further  stimulated  by  the  generaii 
mood  of  the  60s.  After  attending  Connecticut  College 
Thomases  helped  Eugene  McCarthy  win  the  Oregon  pri-i 
mary  in   1968;  Rodham,  meanwhile,  was  denouncing  thei 
Vietnam  War  at  Wellesley.  Each  also  took  a  turn  at  pro 
letarian  employment:  Rodham  worked  in  a  fish  cannery  in 
Alaska;  Thomases  reportedly  drove  a  taxi  in  New  York 
City.  Hillary  worked  for  the  congressional  Watergate  com 
mittee,  while  Susan  helped  set  up  childcare  centers  fon 
poor  families  in  New  York.  Both,  however,  gravitatec 
eventually  toward  Establishment  careers.  Rodham  was  the 
first  woman  partner  at  Little  Rock's  Rose  Law  Firm 
Thomases  became  the  administrative  partner  of  the  blue 
chip  New  York  law  firm  Willkie  Farr  &  Gallagher. 

It  was  through  liberal  politics  that  Thomases  made  th< 
associations  that  shaped  her  subsequent  career.  During 
the  McCarthy  campaign  she  dated  Harold  Ickes,  son  o 
FD.R.'s  legendary  interior  secretary.  He  would  becom< 
a  key  ally  in  the  Clinton  White  House.  (In  the  romai 
a  clef  Primary  Colors  the  Thomases  and  Ickes  character: 
are  wickedly  referred  to  as  "the  Progressive  Labor  Par 
ty's  Fun  Couple  of  1971.")  It  was  through  Project  Purse 
strings,  an  effort  to  get  Congress  to  cut  off  funding  fo 
the  Vietnam  War,  that  Thomases  met  Bill  Clinton  h 
1970.  Not  until  1974,  when  she  went  to  Arkansas  t< 
spend  a  weekend  helping  with  Clinton's  unsuccessfu 
congressional  campaign,  did  she  meet  Hillary.  But  th< 
two  quickly  formed  a  powerful  bond. 


a  I: 


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nan 


Thomases  was  actually  something  of  a  dilettante  in 
comparison  with  the  precocious  Clintons.  After  college, 
she  taught  for  a  while  and  earned  a  graduate  degree  in 
European  history  at  Columbia.  Lacking  the  academic 
temperament,   she  quit  and  did  business  consulting, 
taking  breaks  to  work  in  politics— as  a  scheduler  for  vice- 
presidential  candidate  Walter  Mondale  in  1976  and  cam- 
paign manager  for  Bill  Bradley's  first  Sen- 
ate run,  in   1978.  She  finally  made  it  to 
Columbia  Law  School  almost   10  years 
after  graduating  from  college. 

At  Willkie  Farr  &  Gallagher— whose  Will- 
kie  was  Republican  presidential  candidate 
Wendell— Thomases  rose  quickly,  winning 
responsibility  for  managing  the  firm's  af- 
fairs after  only  three  years.  She  is  said  to 
have  made  a  strongly  unfavorable  impres- 
sion on  those  below  her  in  power  and  stat- 
us. "On  many  occasions  she  cracked  heads,"  recalls  one 
colleague.  "She  was  not  loved  by  the  administrative  and 
professional  staff." 

Tn  1988,  Thomases  married  William  Bettridge,  a 
building  contractor,  now  an  artist.  At  46,  despite 
suffering  for  many  years  with  multiple  sclerosis, 
she  had  a  child,  Thomas,  who  is  now  6.  In  re- 
cent years,  the  Clintons  and  the  Bettridge -Thomases 
have  often  socialized  together.  Thomases'  50th- 
birthday  party  was  held  at  the  White  House,  and 
the  Clintons  have  visited  her  weekend  home  in 
Newport,  Rhode  Island.  Chelsea  stayed  there  when  she 
took  sailing  lessons  two  summers  ago.  Bernie  Nussbaum, 
a  friend  of  Thomases'  from  the  New  York  legal  world,  re- 
calls walking  into  the  private  quarters  one  evening  when 
he  still  worked  at  the  White  House  and  glimpsing  a  typi- 
cal domestic  scene.  The  two  families  were  sharing  a  con- 
vivial dinner  in  the  Solarium,  Chelsea  chatting  with  Susan, 
and  Tommy  asleep  on  the  couch.  As  Thomases  herself  ex- 
plained her  close  relationship  with  the  Clintons  to  the  Sen- 
ate Whitewater  committee,  "We  have  stayed  at  each 
other's  homes,  shared  family  joys  and  sorrows." 

As  Clinton  was  contemplating  a  run  for  president  in 
,  1991,  Thomases  acted  as  a  key  organizer  of  the  Friends  of 
Bill,  the  overlapping  circles  from  Georgetown,  Oxford,  and 
|  Yale,  who  encouraged  him  to  run  and  laid  the  intellectual 
i  infrastructure  for  his  campaign.  But  during  the  campaign 
I  Thomases  failed  to  mesh  with  the  younger  and  newer  fig- 
lures  around  the  candidate.  "We  weren't  the  original  group 
i  who  encouraged  Bill  Clinton  to  run,"  notes  one  campaign 
j  alumnus.  "We  weren't  part  of  that  generation,  or  part  of  the 
,  Washington  -Yale  axis.  Susan  just  viewed  us  as  carpetbag- 
:  gers."  According  to  another  war -room  veteran.  "It  was  hard 
|  for  her  to  give  up  this  Young  Turk  thing.  She  was  never 
i  comfortable  with  another  generation  coming  up  under  her." 
A  glimpse  of  her  role  during  the  early  part  of  the  cam- 
paign is  provided  by  "Lucille  Kauffman,"  the  Thomases 
character  in  Primary  Colors.  The  George  Stephanopoulos-like 
narrator  describes  Lucille  as  "dowdy  and  awful"  in  her 


Top.  the  late  Vince  Foster, 

his  wife,  Lisa,  and  the  Clintons, 

in  Arkansas.  1988. 

Above.  Thomases  and  senior 

adviser  Bruce  Lindsey, 

and,  right,  Thomases'  husband, 

artist  Bill  Bettridge, 

at  the  Senate  Whitewater 

hearings,  1995. 

In  an  incident 
that  became  legendary, 
Thomases  tried  to 
keep  Al  Gore  out  of 
the  inner  circle 
of  the  campaign. 


power  suits  and  running  shoes  and  Gloria  Steinem  aviator 
glasses,  radiating  "a  disconcerting  sense  of  ownership 
about  the  campaign.  She  assumed  herself  part  of  the  in- 
ner circle,  and  the  Stantons  [read  the  Clintons]  never  said 
otherwise."  "A  woman  without  intuition  or  antennae,"  Lu- 
cille spends  her  days  trying  to  "coup"  other  people. 

To  a  small  group  who  were  her  allies  from  before  the 
campaign,  or  who  became  part  of  her  coterie,  Thomases 
was  "warm,  loving,  the  most  incredibly  loyal,  supportive  friend 
you  would  ever  want  to  have,"  according  to  Kathleen  Am- 
brose, who  is  now  deputy  counsel  al  the  Commerce  De- 

141 


partment.  To  others,  however,  Thomases  was  closer  to  the 
description  in  Primary  Colors:  "an  antic  conspirer  .  .  .  out 
for  blood,"  or,  in  the  umninced  words  of  a  young  person 
who  has  worked  with  her,  "an  evil  screaming  witch." 

In  the  course  of  the  campaign,  her  enemies  came 
to  vastly  outnumber  her  defenders  as  she  report- 
edly lobbied  to  have  fired,  among  others:  campaign 
manager  David  Wilhelm,  pollster  Stanley  Green- 
berg,  and  campaign  lawyer  David  Ifshin.  Subse- 
quently she  tried  to  off  press  secretary  Dee  Dee 
Myers  and  adviser  Rahm  Emanuel.  Thomases 
fought  constantly  with  James  Carville  as  well. 
In  the  midst  of  a  squabble  she  would  humiliate  people 
in  front  of  others,  threatening  to  kill  them,  bury  them, 
and  make  sure  they  never  worked  again. 

In  an  incident  that  became  legendary,  Thomases  tried  to 
keep  Al  Gore  out  of  the  inner  circle  of  the  campaign.  Around 
the  time  of  the  New  York  City  convention,  Gore  joined  a 
conference  call  about  the  upcoming  cross-country  bus 
tour.  According  to  one  participant,  Gore  suggested  that 
the  trip  end  in  St.  Louis.  "Susan  said,  'That's  the  stupid- 
est fucking  idea  I've  ever  heard,"'  the  participant  recalls. 
"There  was  just  a  total  sputter.  We  were  all  sitting  stunned 
on  various  telephones.  It  was  really  incredible." 

A  particular  source  of  consternation  was  the  suspicion 
that  she  enhanced  her  power  by  bluffing.  "She  wouldn't  say, 
'Hillary  wants  this,'  but  she  implied  it  by  her  presence,"  an 
official  recalls.  "One  would  assume  that  her  authority  came 
from  Hillary,  but  one  would  be  reluctant  to  ask." 

"She  was  right  one  out  of  10  times,"  says  another  cam- 
paign worker,  "but  she'd  take  credit  for  anything  that  went 
right  and  run  from  everything  that  went  wrong."  Staffers 
were  particularly  incensed  by  her  attempt  to  grab  credit 
for  the  Clinton  bus  tour,  which  was  conceived  by  David 
Wilhelm.  That  she  did  so  while  trying  to  get  Wilhelm  fired 
added  insult  to  injury.  "Good  ideas  have  many  parents," 
says  Wilhelm,  with  utmost  graciousness.  Yet  when  some- 
thing went  wrong,  Thomases  "would  look  at  you  blankly 
as  if  this  were  the  first  time  she'd  heard  of  it,"  another 
staffer  recalls.  "'Whose  dumb  idea  was  this?'  Four  hours 
earlier  she  said  it  was  a  good  idea." 

Allies  and  detractors  alike  explain  these  lapses  in  more 
or  less  the  same  way.  "She  has  to  feel  critical,"  says  one 
friend.  "She  has  to  feel  the  Clintons  can't  function  without 
her."  A  former  campaign  aide  puts  the  same  point  less  char- 
itably: "People  who  learned  to  deal  with  Susan  started  suck- 
ing up  to  her  immediately,  asking  her  advice  about  everything 
and  making  her  feel  important.  She  wants  to  be  the  genius." 

Thomases  fared  somewhat  better  after  the  convention,  a 
success  which  she  and  Ickes  helped  orchestrate.  Colleagues 
were  impressed  that  Thomases  was  willing  to  commit  her- 
self to  an  actual  task— scheduling  the  candidate's  appear- 
ances. But  she  continued  to  infuriate  co-workers,  in  part 
by  refusing  to  abide  by  the  usual  group  processes.  "If  a  de- 
cision was  made  internally,  it  was  never  finally  made,  be- 
cause she  could  always  check  one  more  time,  run  it  up  the 
flagpole  with  the  Clintons,"  a  campaign  official  recalls. 
"Things  we  thought  were  killed  would  come  back  and  have 


a  life  of  their  own."  In  particular,  "it  drove  Carville  nuts.' 
For  instance,  Carville  and  Wilhelm  thought  it  had  been  de 
cided  near  the  end  of  the  campaign  not  to  waste  valuable 
time  in  Mississippi,  a  sure-lose  state,  despite  a  promise  tha 
had  been  made  to  then  congressman  Mike  Espy.  Accord 
ing  to  a  campaign  source,  Thomases  appealed  directly  tc 
Bill  Clinton,  who  then  went  to  Mississippi.  But  according 
to  Kathleen  Ambrose,  who  worked  under  Thomases  a; 
Clinton's  personal  scheduler,  such  decisions  were  ofter 
Clinton's  own,  and  Thomases  unfairly  took  the  heat. 

One  campaign  hand  says  he  thinks  the  bond  between  Hillarj 
and  Susan  was  solidified  during  the  period  when  the  Clin- 
tons had,  as  it  is  delicately  put,  trouble  in  their  marriage. 
"That's  when  I  think  they  became  sisters-in-arms,"  he  says 
"Susan  was  the  one  Hillary  cried  with,  debated  divorce, 
with.  I  also  have  a  feeling  that  at  some  point,  when  one  ol 
these  bimbettes  threatened  to  come  out  and  expose  him  fori 
what  he  was,  Hillary  dispatched  Susan  as  the  out-of-towc 
mean  lawyer  to  threaten  to  ruin  her  life  if  she  even  thought 
about  going  public."  This  was  a  role  she  continued  to  play 
in  the  campaign.  Nussbaum  says  Thomases  called  him  ir 
New  York  to  discuss  what  could  be  done  within  legal: 
bounds  to  deal  with  Gennifer  Flowers,  as  well  as  other  po> 
tential  accusations  in  instances  he  declines  to  detail. 

Hillary  also  turned  to  Susan  when  Whitewater  threat- 
ened to  break.  Thomases  was  appointed  to  deal  with  in-i 
quiries  from  Jeff  Gerth,  the  New  York  Times  reporter  who 
happened  on  the  story.  After  the  Flowers  and  draft-eva- 
sion incidents,  Whitewater  might  have  been  a  fatal  third 
strike  for  the  candidate,  but  as  Stewart  recounts  in  BlooaJ 
Sport,  Thomases  handled  Gerth  effectively.  She  stalled 
and  gave  him  just  enough  information  to  confuse  thee 
issue,  while  disingenuously  telling  him  it  was  Williami) 
Kennedy  at  the  Rose  Law  Firm  who  wouldn't  give  hen 
the  information.  As  Stewart  writes,  Thomases  was  de- 
lighted with  the  end  result.  The  Gerth  story,  when  it  m 
nally  appeared,  was  in  her  opinion  incomprehensible. 


\ 


According  to  Elizabeth  Drew's  book  Om 
the  Edge,  Thomases  was  interested  in  two; 
positions  after  the  election,  attorney  gen-> 
eral  and  White  House  chief  of  staff.  When 
it  became  clear  that  she  would  be  chosen 
for  neither,  she  settled  for  advising  the  ad- 
ministration on  a  freelance  basis.  For  would- 
be  appointees,  she  played  gatekeeper.! 
Agreeing  with  Hillary  that  the  attorney  general  needed  to  b 
female,  she  pushed  the  ill-fated  Zoe  Baird  nomination,  and 
after  that  the  equally  unsuccessful  choice  of  Kimba  Wood, 
who  had  been  a  classmate  of  Thomases'  at  Connecticut  Col-" 
lege.  She  also  played  a  key  role  in  selecting  Nussbaum  as 
White  House  counsel.  But  not  all  her  choices  were  bad. 
Nussbaum  points  out  that  Thomases  deserves  a  share  of  the 
credit  for  the  Supreme  Court  selection  of  Ruth  Bader  Gins- 
burg,  with  whom  she  had  studied  at  Columbia  Law  School. 
In  addition  to  her  work  in  personnel,  Thomases  was 
generally  unhelpful  when  it  came  to  the  administration's 
early  difficulties  with  media  relations.  "She  reinforces  Hil- 
lary's worst  instincts  on  all  those  (Continued  on  page  176) 


142 


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the  next  time  you  decline  a  tofu  burger  andt 
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really  morally  superior  to  everyone  else  on 
if  he  just  wants  to  be  the  center  of  attentions 
The  preternaturally  gorgeous  Lena  Endre,»| 
as  Celimene,  poses  one  of  the  eternal  ques  ! 
tions:  Is  physical  beauty  proof  of  moral  re-» 
finement?  Rich  with  swords,  silver  buckles^! 
powdered  wigs  the  size  of  wedding  cakes,: ' 
and  music  by  Scarlatti,  the  show  opens  at  the* 
BAM  Opera  House  on  June  8.  -DAVID  DANiEUi 


Photographs  by  PASCAL  CHEVALLIER 


THE 
MISANTHROPE 


A  sumptuous 

spectacle  with  swords 

silver  buckles, 

and  powdered  wigs. 


\ 


3&i 


1 

1  1 

PI;       '■ 

V 

| 

SECOND  ACTS 

Though  two  juries  were  hung  in 

the  first  trial  of  Lyle  Menendez,  28, 

and  his  brother,  Erik,  25,  far  right, 

a  single  jury  found  them  guilty  of  murder 

in  the  first  degree  on  March  20. 

Though  O.  J.  Simpson  was  acquitted 

after  less  than  four  hours  of  jury 

deliberation  in  his  murder  trial,  lie  faces 

a  revealing  civil  trial  in  September. 




■     • 


_ — 


ummimun  Wi 


Follov 

other  shocking  double  murder, 
DOMINICK  DUNNE  maizes  his  closing 
argument  on  the  twisted  tale  of  the 
Menendez  brothers — and  discovers  ne\^ 
pieces  of  the  0.  J.  Simpson  puzzle 


U  one  point  Abramson  bellowed  to  thio 
team  were  liars,  who  cared  only  abouii 


1gr&m&" 


hat  I  have  suspected  since  I  became  in- 
volved with  the  Los  Angeles  murder  trials 
of  the  Menendez  brothers  and  O.  J. 
Simpson  is  that  winning  is  everything,  no 
matter  what  you  have  to  do  to  win.  If 
lies  have  to  be  told,  if  defenses  have  to 
be  created,  if  juries  have  to  be  tampered 
with  in  order  to  weed  out  those  who  ap- 
pear to  be  unsympathetic  to  the  defendant, 
then  so  be  it.  The  name  of  the  game  is 
to  beat  the  system  and  let  the  guilty  walk 
free.  If  you  can  get  away  with  it.  The  stench  of  O.  J. 
Simpson's  acquittal  grows  stronger  by  the  week  as  allega- 
tions of  jury  tampering  abound,  and  reports  surface  con- 
cerning a  flunked  polygraph  test  taken  by  Simpson  two 
days  after  the  murders,  in  the  company  of  two  of  his  at- 
torneys. Although  the  results  were  thought  to  have  been 
destroyed.  I  am  told  that  a  copy  exists.  And  then,  as  if 
that  weren't  enough,  came  the  extraordinary  moment  dur- 
ing the  penalty  phase  of  the  second  Menendez  trial  when 
Leslie  Abramson,  the  zealous  defense  attorney  for  Erik 
Menendez,  was  brought  down  with  a  resounding  crash  which 
stunned  the  legal  profession  and  could  possibly  end  with* 
her  disbarment,  when  her  own  expert  witness  Dr.  William 
Vicary  testified  on  the  stand  to  prosecutor  David  Conn 
that  changes  in  his  notes  had  been  made  at  Abramson's 
request,  because  she  believed  his  original  notes  were  prej- 
udicial to  her  client.  We'll  get  to  this  in  sequence. 

If  there's  another  hung  jury,  look  for  my  name 
in  the  obituaries. 

Detective  Les  Zoeller,  who  has  been  on  the 

Menendez  case  since  the  night  of  the  murders  seven 

years  ago  and  has  sat  through  both  trials. 

Since  O.  J.  Simpson  was  arrested  for  the  murders  of 
Nicole  Brown  Simpson  and  Ronald  Goldman  on 
June  17,  1994,  his  case  has  so  eclipsed  the  Menen- 
dez saga  that  most  people  were  unaware  that  a  sec- 
ond Menendez  trial— not  covered  on  Court  TV— had 
been  going  on  for  five  months  until  the  verdict  came  in 
on  March  20.  A  jury  of  eight  men  and  four  women  found 
the  used-to-be-rich  brothers  guilty  of  murder  of  both  par- 
ents in  the  first  degree  with  special  circumstances— lying  in 
wait  and  multiple  murders. 

Lyle  and  Erik  Menendez  knew  before  they  sat  down 
that  day  that  the  jurors  had  arrived  at  a  verdict,  even  though 
Leslie  Abramson  in  her  closing  argument  had  virtually 
begged  for  a  hung  jury.  "It  is  better  to  not  render  a  ver- 

148 


diet  than  it  is  to  render  an  unjust  one  or  a  compromise," 
she  had  said.  They  also  knew  there  was  no  possibility  that 
the  verdict  was  going  to  be  an  acquittal,  so  they  were  pre- 
pared for  bad  news.  The  moment  after  the  verdict  was 
read  by  court  clerk  Penny  Tinnell  was  breathtaking  in  its 
silence.  There  was  not  so  much  as  a  gasp  heard.  Even 
Maria  Menendez,  the  mother  of  the  murdered  Jose  Menen- 
dez and  the  grandmother  of  his  killers,  who  had  been 
known  to  make  the  occasional  fuss,  simply  sat  there, 
bravely  mute.  There  were  no  breakdowns  on  the  defense 
side  or  any  traces  of  jubilation  on  the  prosecution  side. 
Leslie  Abramson  looked  over  at  Erik,  but  said  nothing. 
Charles  Gessler,  who  represented  Lyle,  placed  his  hand  on 
Lyle's  back  but  said  nothing.  David  Conn  did  not  ex- 
change even  a  look  with  Carol  Najera,  the  second  prose- 
cutor. Then  Erik,  ashen -faced,  old  beyond  his  25  years, 
turned  to  his  grandmother  and  mouthed  the  words  "I  love 
you."  It  was  heartbreakingly  sad.  I  wanted  to  get  out  of ' 
that  courtroom.  I  didn't  want  to  talk  to  anybody  about 
what  had  just  happened,  not  even  to  David  Conn  to  con-  • 
gratulate  him  on  the  brilliant  job  he  had  done  by  point- 
ing out  to  the  jury  over  and  over  again  in  his  closing  argument 
the  absurdities  of  the  defense  case. 

David  Conn  is  an  impressive  figure  in  the  courtroom, . 
a  presence  to  match  Abramson  but  altogether  different. . 
Tall  and  lean,  45,  with  a  full  head  of  black  hair,  he  bears 
an  uncanny  resemblance  to  Clark  Kent,  Superman's  alter 
ego,  as  has  been  frequently  noted.  I  had  watched  Conn  in  i 
a  courtroom  before,  during  the  1990-91  trial  of  the  hired 
killers  who  murdered  Roy  Radin,  a  showbiz  impresario 
who  had  briefly  been  a  partner  of  producer  Robert  Evans 
in  the  ill-fated  film  Tlie  Cotton  Club.  I  was  struck  then  by 
his  calm  toughness  and  firm  command  of  the  case.  The 
killers  got  life  without  parole.  After  the  Menendez  verdict, 
I  received  a  telephone  call  from  Kate  Radin,  Roy's  sister, . 
in  Hawaii.  She  was  ecstatic  over  Conn's  victory.  "I  hope: 
David  gets  all  the  credit,"  she  said.  "All  that  I'm  reading 
about  out  here  is  [Los  Angeles  district  attorney]  Gil  Garcetti." 

In  this  age  of  dysfunctional  families  and  mindless  vio- 
lence, a  verdict  of  any  lesser  degree  than  the  one  the  jury 
came  to  in  the  Menendez  case  would  have  given  the  worst 
sort  of  message  to  the  youth  of  America.  What  a  waste, 
that  two  young  men  who  had  everything  the  material 
world  could  provide  should  end  up  in  this  disgraceful 
state,  at  the  age  for  a  first  fatherhood  neither  will  ever 
have,  carrying  the  two  words  by  which  they  will  always 
be  described:  "murderer"  and  "convict."  Whatever  it  was^ 
in  their  family  that  brought  about  the  moments  of  mad- 
ness that  led  to  the  brutal  acts  that  ruined  their  lives  ir- 


of« 


pres 


*; 


pure 


a:: 


if 


sari! 

in. 
4 
ik 
k 
k 

jUP. 


inning,  not  truth. 


revocably  could  not  have  been  as  bad  as  50  or  60  or  what- 
ever number  of  years  are  left  to  them  stagnating  in  a  10- 
foot-long  prison  cell.  Now  that  they  are  stripped  of  the 
falsehoods  that  peppered  their  defense— the  sexual  abuse, 
the  fear  that  their  parents  were  going  to  kill  them,  none 
of  which  the  jury  bought  the  second  time  around—and  left 
with  the  facts  of  what  really  happened  on  the  night  of  Au- 
gust 20,  1989,  and  the  days  leading  up  to  it,  which  only 
the  two  of  them  know,  I  wonder  if  they  have  come  to  re- 
alize how  many  options  they  had  to  deal  with  the  hate 
they  felt  for  their  parents  other  than  the  violent  one  they 
picked.  Their  father's  older  sister,  Teresita  "Terry"  Barak, 
whom  I  have  always  admired,  told  me  one  day  in  the 
courthouse  during  the  closing  arguments  that  her  nephews, 
whom  she  loves,  were  "horrified  by  what  they  have  done, 
horrified,  but  it's  too  late." 

For  Leslie  Abramson,  who  became  a  much-quoted  ce- 
lebrity during  the  first  trial,  the  final  verdict  was  a  bitter  de- 
feat. She  had  always  appeared  ready  to  sacrifice  Lyle  to 
save  Erik,  whom  she  referred  to  as  "my  most  cherished  client." 
Parts  of  her  three-day  closing  argument  were  so  over  the 
top  that  she  verged  on  camp.  She  spoke  with  such  passion 
for  her  client  that  she  made  winning  an  acquittal  for  a  con- 
fessed killer  seem  like  an  act  of  nobility.  An  overpowering 
presence,  a  creative  storyteller,  an  actress  capable  of  play- 
ing Medea,  she  fiercely  dared  anyone  to  disbelieve  her  ver- 
sion of  the  murders.  She  ridiculed  David  Conn's  premise 
that  the  killings  were  premeditated,  explaining  to  the  jury 
that  driving  to  San  Diego  two  days  before  the  murders  to 
purchase  two  shotguns  with  a  stolen  driver's  license  as  iden- 
tification was  all  logical  behavior  which  had  nothing  to  do 
with  premeditation.  There  were  times  when  you  had  to  ad- 
mire her  sheer  verve.  At  one  point  she  bellowed  to  the 
courtroom  in  her  most  strident  tone  that  the  prosecution 
team  were  liars,  who  cared  only  about  winning,  not  truth. 
When  David  Conn  walked  out  of  the  courtroom  into  the 
corridor  during  one  break,  he  jokingly  held  his  hand  over 
his  ear,  as  if  he  had  an  earache  from  Abramson's  yelling. 
Detective  Les  Zoeller  laughed  at  Conn's  performance.  The 
trial  historian  Judy  Spreckels  cracked,  "Louder  ain't  neces- 
sarily better."  On  the  other  hand,  Joan  Selznick.  a  former 
daughter-in-law  of  the  late  film  producer  David  O.  Selznick, 
who  sat  in  a  section  reserved  for  the  Menendez  family,  had 
a  different  reaction  altogether.  "Brilliant,  don't  you  think?" 
she  said.  "I  think  she'll  get  Erik  an  acquittal." 

As  if  sensing  that  her  case  for  Erik  wasn't  playing  to  the 
jury  the  way  it  had  in  the  first  trial,  Abramson  injected  bits 
of  autobiographical  information  into  her  arguments.  She 
itold  the  jurors  about  her  immigrant  grandmother,  who  had 


REVERSAL 
OF  FORTUNE 

Leslie  Abramson,  left, 

was  seriously 

damaged  in  the  second 

Menendez  trial  when 

prosecutor  David  Conn, 

above,  got  expert  witness 

Dr.  William  Vicary 

to  testify  that  Abramson 

had  persuaded 

him  to  alter  the  notes 

of  his  sessions 

with  Erik  Menendez. 


worked  in  a  sweatshop  and  seen  friends  jump  out  of  win- 
dows during  the  Triangle  Shirtwaist  Company  fire  in  1911, 
and  then  had  gone  on  to  be  a  labor  organizer.  She  worked 
in  that  her  grown  daughter  has  an  I.Q.  of  165,  that  her 
two-year-old  son  talks  baby  talk,  and  that  her  husband 
plays  the  lottery  but  doesn't  win.  She  even  brought  in  her 
physical  ailments,  by  telling  the  jurors,  for  instance,  that 
she  needed  a  break  to  take  her  medication.  She  also  told 
them  that  this  was  probably  her  last  trial,  and  that  it  would 
be  the  "ultimate  tragedy"  of  her  life  if  she  lost  this  case. 
Surely  the  jury  must  have  been  thinking  the  same  thing  a 
lot  of  us  were:  So  what?  She  closed  by  asking  the  jury  to 
hang  if  they  couldn't  agree  to  acquit  Erik  Menendez. 

That  night  and  the  following  day,  Erik  and  Lyle  Menen- 
dez were  back  in  headlines  that  Simpson  had  taken  away 
from  them,  only  this  time  the  headlines  were  very  differ- 
ent:  MENENDEZ  BROTHERS  GUILTY! 

It  was  the  most  interesting  moment  I  ever  spent 
in  a  courtroom. 

—Judy  Spreckels,  discussing  the  moment 

Dr.  William  Vicary  linked 

Leslie  Abramson  to  his  deception. 

The  flamboyant  Leslie  Abramson,  who  had  become  a 
television  personality  on  ABC  after  the  first  trial,  may 
have  flamboyantly  catapulted  herself  right  out  of  a 
career  in  both  television  and  law  if  she  knowingly 
advised  Dr.  William  Vicary.  a  psychiatrist  appearing 
as  an  expert  witness  on  April  4,  to  deceive  the  jury. 

This  came  to  light  during  the  penalty  phase  of  the  sec- 
ond trial,  when  the  jurors  who  had  found  both  Menendez 
brothers  guilty  of  murder  in  the  first  degree  were  hearing 

149 


Linda  Deutsch,  the  doyenne  of  crimif 
Simpson  trial,  "Everyone  connected  withe 


testimony  to  decide  whether  their  fate  should  be  death  by 
lethal  injection  or  life  in  prison  without  the  possibility  of 
parole.  If  you  read  the  transcript  of  that  day's  proceed- 
ings, it  seems  apparent  from  Abramson's  immediate  ob- 
jection to  a  question  posed  to  Vicary  by  prosecutor  David 
Conn  that  she  was  cognizant  that  the  jig  was  about  to  be 
up  for  her.  When  Conn  asked  Vicary  if  Erik  had  talked 
of  a  conversation  about  what  life  would  be  like  without 
parents,  Conn  suddenly  realized  that  his  copy  of  Vicary 's 
notes  didn't  jibe  with  what  Vicary  was  reading.  "I'm  go- 
ing to  object  to  this,"  Abramson  said,  but  Judge  Stanley 
Weisberg  ignored  her.  Then  came  the  line  out  of  Vicary's 
mouth  that  silenced  the  courtroom:  "I  left  that  section  out 
at  the  request  of  defense  counsel." 

"When  did  defense  counsel  ask  you  to  rewrite  your 
notes,  leaving  out  material?"  asked  Conn. 

"In  preparation  for  my  testimony  at  the  first  trial," 
replied  Vicary. 

"And  which  defense  counsel  made  that  request  of  you?" 
asked  Conn. 

"Ms.  Abramson,"  replied  Vicary. 

"Did  she  tell  you  why  she  wanted  you  to  rewrite  your 
notes?"  Conn  persisted. 

"She  said  this  was  prejudicial,  and  it  was  out  of  bounds, 
and  it  was  not  necessary,"  answered  Vicary. 

This  is  how  the  universe  responds. 

Judy  Hilsinger,  C.E.O.  of  Hilsinger 

Mendohlson  Inc.,  the  public-relations  firm, 

discussing  Leslie  Abramson. 

ithin  an  hour  or  so  of  that  fateful  moment  in  Abram- 
son's  life,  11  people  in  California,  some  of  whom 
had  witnessed  her  humiliation  in  the  courtroom, 
called  me  to  say  that  she  was  "ruined,"  that  she 
could  be  "disbarred."  Vicary  did  not  attempt  to 
justify  her  instructions  to  him.  But  why  should  he?  His  ca- 
reer was  also  presumably  in  tatters.  Who  would  ever  put 
him  on  the  stand  again  as  an  expert  witness  after  he  had 
deceived  the  court? 

I  don't  like  Leslie  Abramson,  and  I  know  she  doesn't 
like  me.  We  sniffed  each  other  early  on,  some  six  years  ago, 
and  didn't  take  to  each  other's  smell.  Back  then  she  said  to 
me,  "The  trouble  with  you  is  you  always  root  for  the  wrong 
side."  I  told  her,  "It's  hard  to  root  for  the  kind  of  people 
you  represent."  Among  her  past  courtroom  triumphs  at  the 
time  was  the  case  of  a  Pakistani  doctor  named  Khalid  Par- 
wez,  who  had  been  arrested  on  charges  of  strangling  his  11- 
year-old  son  and  surgically  cutting  him  into  more  than  200 
pieces.  Abramson  had  tried  to  work  out  a  plea  bargain  for 
second-degree  murder.  A  plea  bargain  carries  with  it  an  im- 

150 


plication  of  guilt.  The  then  district  attorney,  Ira  Reiner,  had 


M 


I « 


turned  her  down,  saying  that  the  state  was  going  for  a  con- 
viction on  first-degree  murder.  When  the  case  went  to  trl — i  m 
al,  Abramson  won  an  acquittal  for  Parwez,  who  even 
received  a  round  of  applause  from  the  jury.  Subsequently 
she  sued  Parwez  for  payment  for  her  legal  services. 

The  only  thing  that  surprises  me  about  the  latest  devel-  k". 
opment  is  that  such  a  smart  woman— and,  believe  me,  she 
is  smart— might  have  done  such  a  stupid  thing.  Over  the.'nie 
years  a  lot  of  people  have  wanted  to  bring  Leslie  Abram- -: « 
son  down,  but  in  the  end  she  seems  to  have  brought  her-  ■>  fa 
self  down.  She  had  turned  over  to  Dr.  Park  Dietz,  an  rase. 
expert  witness  for  the  prosecution  in  the  second  trial,  a  boxv  erei; 
of  documents  pertaining  to  Erik.  In  that  box  were  notes 
Vicary  had  made  in  preparation  for  the  first  trial— before  ■  niy" 
they  had  been  redacted  by  him— and  those  were  the  notes sw 
Conn  had  in  front  of  him.  Once  he  realized  that  discrep- •-! )f hi 
ancies  existed,  he  approached  Vicary  to  see  what  he  was  s  >n  ill 
reading  from.  He  picked  up  the  notes  and  studied  them  n  ire  s 
carefully  for  almost  a  minute  while  the  courtroom  sat  iimrr 
silence.  Then  he  pounced.  Subsequently,  Vicary  testified  l-k: 
that  he  had  made  24  changes.  iicls 

It  was  just  a  fluke,  some  people  say,  a  lucky  accident,  j  jpiii 
the  hand  of  God,  but  the  novelist  part  of  me  wants  to  in--:  a  I 
terpret  it  as  an  intervention  by  Jose  Menendez,  bellowing 
his  rage  at  Abramson  for  the  monstrous,  distorted  picture 
she  had  presented  of  him  and  his  wife.  There  was  not  an 
iota  of  proof  to  support  the  sexual-molestation  defense, . 
nothing  but  the  word  of  the  two  defendants,  both  of  whom  i;  irisoi 
are  world-class  liars.  I  never  believed  them  or  fell  for  their r| Hie 
tears  on  the  stand.  Abramson's  clear  intention  from  the.io 
very  beginning  was  to  portray  Jose  Menendez  as  a  per-* 
vert  who  sexually  molested  her  client  for  12  years,  right  i 
up  to  a  night  or  two  before  the  murders,  in  order  to  make, 
the  jury  believe  that  he  deserved  to  be  killed.  Eight  of  the. 
things  the  brothers  claimed  their  father  had  done  to  them 
are  chronicled  in  other  people's  case  histories  in  a  bookjii 
called   When  a  Child  Kills,  by  Paul  Mones,  who  was  anV'Ur 
adviser  to  the  defense  in  the  first  trial.  The  brothers'  own 
aunt  Terry  Baralt,  who  loved  them  but  did  not  believe  the  f, 
allegations  of  sexual  abuse,  told  me  during  the  first  trial 
that  they  had  both  read  Mones's  book  in  jail.  Baralt,  who 
took  the  stand  reluctantly  during  the  first  trial,  told  me  she 
had  said  to  Abramson  at  the  time,  "Be  careful  what  you 
ask  me,  because  I  will  not  lie."  If  what  the  brothers  said 
about  their  father  was  true,  they  didn't  need  to  embellish 
their  defense  with  other  people's  experiences. 

When  Dr.  Vicary  claimed  that  the  alterations  in  his  4\\ 


IHSHm 


le  case  was  damaged  by  i€ 


otes  were  made  at  the  request 
f  Abramson,  the  jury  was  present  to  witness  her  disgrace. 
-o  were  print  and  television  reporters,  members  of  the 
unily  of  the  killers,  and  members  of  the  public.  Her  de- 
mse  team  immediately  distanced  themselves  from  her.  as 
'  she  had  been  carrying  a  communicable  disease.  A  shot 
n  television  showed  her  standing  apart  from  her  confreres 
utside  the  courthouse  during  a  break,  smoking  furiously, 
'hile  they  talked  among  themselves.  Barry  Levin,  her  co- 
ounsel,  told  Judge  Weisberg  that  he  would  advise  Erik 
lenendez  to  ask  the  court  to  remove  Abramson  from  the 
ase.  "Her  credibility  in  front  of  this  jury  has  been  so  se- 
erely  tainted  and  damaged,"  he  said,  "that  it's  very  un- 
Jcely  that  any  of  her  arguments  are  going  to  persuade  this 
iry."  Charles  Gessler  and  Terri  Towery,  Lyle's  lawyers,  ar- 
ued  that  their  client  had  been  harmed,  through  no  fault 
f  his  own,  by  Abramson's  wrong  call  in  putting  Vicary 
n  the  stand  with  his  altered  notes.  In  what  some  experts 
re  saying  is  a  courtroom  first,  Abramson  twice  invoked 
er  privilege  against  self-incrimination  by  taking  the  Fifth 
amendment  at  the  same  time  that  she  was  trying  to  keep 

client  from  receiving  the  death  penalty.  Her  alleged  de- 
eption  not  only  plunged  the  trial  into  total  chaos  but  also 
ast  her  future  into  a  doubtful  state. 

Abramson,  who  is  never  at  a  loss  for  words,  was  un- 
ble  to  declare  her  reaction  to  Vicary's  allegations  until  a 
,ag  order  imposed  by  Judge  Weisberg  was  lifted  after  the 
ury  came  in  on  April  17  with  the  sentence  of  life  in 
irison  without  the  possibility  of  parole  for  both  brothers. 
Tie  following  day,  she  gave  her  first  extended  interview, 

0  the  Los  Angeles  Times,  where  her  husband,  Tim  Rutten, 
5  a  staff  writer,  one  of  the  team  that  covered  the  O.  J. 
iimpson  trial.  She  told  the  reporter  Ann  O'Neill  with  a 
lugh,  "I  don't  know  how  commonplace  it  is  to  have  your 
isychiatric  expert  turn  on  you  and  lie  on  you  in  the  mid- 
lie  of  a  trial.  He  has  a  guilty  conscience  that  he  rewrote 
ds  notes?  That's  his  problem."  To  which  Vicary  responded, 

1  know  that's  what  she's  saying,  and  I  honestly  believe 
hat  she  remembers  it  that  way,  but  that's  not  my  memo- 
y.  I  would  never,  ever  take  anything  out  of  my  notes  that 

think  is  important.'' 

I  have  learned  that  a  criminal  investigation  of  Abramson 
vill  take  place.  Prosecutors  from  her  past  trials  who  are 
Itill  in  the  district  attorney's  office,  some  of  whom  were 
:ager  to  comment  on  her  situation,  were  prevented  from 
loing  so  by  the  gag  order.  One  law-enforcement  official 
aid  to  me  in  disgust,  "The  system  countenances  this  sort 
if  thing  as  long  as  you  get  away  with  it." 


Ill 


PARADISE  LOST 
F.  Lee  Bailey,  above,  a  key 
member  of  Simpson's  Dream  Team, 
is  led  away  in  handcuffs  on 
March  6  after  failing  to  hand  over 
more  than  $20  million  of  a 
drug-dealing  client's  assets.  Left, 
Robert  Kardashian,  with 
his  ex-girlfriend  Denice  Halicki 
in  1995,  has  "pulled  away" 
from  his  old  friend  Simpson 
since  the  trial. 


People  in  publishing  circles  are  wondering  how  this  will 
affect  her  forthcoming  book,  My  Life  in  Crime,  for  which 
Simon  &  Schuster  paid  $500,000.  The  title  should  still 
work.  It  has  been  reported  that  the  last  chapter  will  be 
Abramson's  defense  of  her  current  situation. 

O.J.  will  never  be  accepted  back  into 

the  world  he  so  desperately  wants  to  be  a  part  of. 

Never.  They  will  never  take  him  back. 

—Tina  Sinatra  at  dinner  at  Le  Colonial. 

Knock,  knock.   Who's  there?  Kato.  Kato  who? 
That's  my  biggest  fear. 

—Joke  told  by  Kato  Kaelin  on  television. 

Unlike  the  Menendez  brothers,  O.  J.  Simpson  has  nev- 
er, from  the  day  of  his  arrest,  ceased  to  be  a  news- 
maker or  a  main  topic  of  conversation,  no  matter 
what  table  you  happen  to  be  sitting  at.  Although  his 
call-ins  to  radio  and  television  shows  don't  get  re- 
ported much  anymore,  he  still  makes  them  from  time  to 
time.  Shortly  after  I  returned  to  Los  Angeles  for  the  clos- 
ing arguments  in  the  Menendez  case,  he  had  something 
to  say  about  me  when  he  talked  to  radio  station  KJLH- 
FM,  speaking  in  the  patronizing  voice  of  a  man  recently 
acquitted  of  two  murders: 

Look  at  the  people  [Geraldo  Rivera]  brings  on  his  show.  Why 
would  anyone  bring  Dominick  Dunne  on  for  any  kind  of  per- 
spective? Because  Dominick  Dunne  from  day  one  has  had  one 
perspective.  He  sat  there  with  his  mouth  open  when  the  ver- 

151 


I  can  take  you  down  to  South  Central  ang 
said  Anthony  Davis,  'and  9  would  te  i 


diet   came    in.   when    reasonable 

people,  even  [Associated  Press  reporter]  Linda  Deutsch,  and 
these  other  people  who  followed  the  trial  daily,  none  of  them 
were  surprised  by  the  verdict.  They  may  have  been  surprised 
by  the  speed  of  the  verdict,  but.  based  on  the  evidence,  none 
of  them  stated  they  were  surprised.  This  guy  was  in  shock.  That 
shows  just  how  far  out  of  the  mix  he  was. 


I  have  a  different  reaction.  I  think  his  call  depicts  just 
how  far  out  of  the  mix  he  is.  People  tell  me  he  still  doesn't 
really  get  how  he  is  perceived  by  most  people.  Although, 
according  to  Japanese -American  sportswriter  Russell  Kishi, 
he  told  a  new  golfing  buddy  during  a  match  at  Canyon 
Lake  Country  Club,  near  Temecula,  about  50  miles  from 
Los  Angeles  -not  the  sort  of  course  where  he  used  to  play 
that  he  is  worth  $120  million,  a  source  close  to  the  de- 
fense says  he  is  broke  and  still  owes  money  to  some  of 
his  lawyers  from  his  murder  trial.  Nevertheless,  appear- 
ances being  everything  to  him.  the  house  on  Rockingham 
shows  no  signs  of  lack  of  maintenance.  His  pay-per-view, 
which  was  supposed  to  bring  him  $20  million,  never  took 
place.  His  highly  touted  $29.95  video.  O  J.  Simpson:  The 
Interview,  which  was  supposed  to  make  him  $1  million  up 
front  and  a  percentage  of  the  profits,  has  been  a  bust. 
"They  haven't  sold  30.000  copies."  Charley  Steiner  of 
ESPN  told  me  at  the  Tyson-Bruno  fight  at  the  MGM 
Grand  in  Las  Vegas.  The  video's  producer,  Tony  Hoffman, 
known  to  some  as  "the  king  of  the  infomercial."  disputes 
these  accounts  without  disclosing  the  actual  figures.  Al- 
most everybody  else  connected  with  the  case  is  writing  or 
has  written  a  book  for  big  money,  and  that  is  said  to  in- 
furiate Simpson.  According  to  the  National  Enquirer.  Simp- 
son has  a  new  girlfriend  named  Kimberly  Ashby.  who 
looks  exactly  like  Nicole  and  thinks  he's  guilty,  but  who 
loves  him  anyway.  Ashby  has  denied  the  report.  Can  this 
story  get  any  tackier? 

H.R.H.  Princess  Margaret,  on  a  recent  visit  to  Los  An- 
geles to  raise  funds  for  the  British  Museum,  told  me  at 
a  party  that  she  thought  the  whole  Simpson  case  was 
"such  a  bore."  but  1  don't  find  it  at  all  boring.  I  see  it 
as  a  morality  tale  that  is  still  playing  itself  out,  like  a 
Russian  novel  set  in  Los  Angeles,  with  1,000  characters 
and  1,000  subplots.  It's  my  dream  that  one  day  all  the 
pieces  of  this  story  will  come  out.  There  are  so  many 
people  in  this  town  who  know  things  bits  and  pieces 
of  the  puzzle  who  won't  come  forward.  People  tell  me. 
"I  don't  want  to  get  involved,"  or  "I'm  scared,"  or  "I'll 
tell  you  after  the  civil  case  is  over."  A  man  I  know  and 
trust,  a  friend  of  Simpson's  for  20  years,  savs  he's  dying 

152 


to  tell  me.  but  can't,  the  name  of  the  person  who  called 
him  from  the  crime  scene  on  the  night  of  the  murders,  to 
before  the  police  arrived.  L 

"You  knew  about  the  murders  before  the  police?"  I  asked.il, 
"Yeah,"  he  replied.  h\\i. 

Even  Kato  Kaelin.  Simpson's  houseguest  and  star  wit-  ife 
ness.  said  on  Geraldo  Rivera's  show  in  March  that  he  be-a^ii 
lieves  that  Simpson  is  guilty  of  the  murders.  |[efn 

New  Simpson  stories  continue  to  proliferate.  On  a  wet  Sun->Lv 
day  morning  in  February,  I  met  with  a  man  I  know  in  West 
Los  Angeles  who  told  me  an  extraordinary  story  about  a  plas- 
tic surgeon  he  is  acquainted  with  in  Beverly  Hills  whose  name 
I  cannot  reveal.  On  two  occasions  during  Simpson's  gloryuCCfl, 
days  as  a  University  of  Southern  California  football  star,  the*L, 
plastic  surgeon  claims,  he  was  hired  to  repair  the  faces  of  two 
young  women  Simpson  had  allegedly  beaten  up.  Like  so  many\W 
background  people  in  the  O.J.  story,  the  doctor  has  had  sec- 
ond thoughts  about  talking.  "It  was  a  long  time  ago,  and  be-% 
sides,  my  hands  didn't  make  the  incision."  he  told  me, 
implying  that  he  was  not  the  only  doctor  involved. 

"/  was  at  Eclipse  one  night  having  dinner.   There  was 
a  large  table  next  to  us.  I  knew  someone  at  the  table  and 
stopped  to  say  hello.  My  friend  said,    'I'd  like  you  to 
meet  Robert  Shapiro'   who  I  hadn't  noticed  was  at  the 
table.  Shapiro  rose  and  held  out  his  hand.  I  said, 
Tin  sorry  Mr.  Shapiro,  but  I  cannot  shake  the  hand  of 
anyone  who  was  responsible  for  O.  J.  Simpson's 
acquitted. 

"Can  I  use  that'"  I  asked 

"Sure,  but  you  can't  use  my  name."  d 

Conversation  at  the  Hotel  Bel-Air  within 
a  beautiful  actress/model/television  hostess/wifenM 
of  an  important  industry  figure..1 


Ms 


Five  months  after  O.J.'s  unpopular  acquittal,  one  mem-i 
ber  of  his  Dream  Team,  F.  Lee  Bailey,  was  hauled  off! 
to  jail  in  leg-irons  and  handcuffs  to  do  time  for  con-> 
tempt  of  court  for  failing  to  hand  over  more  than  $20i 
million  in  stocks  and  cash  appropriated  from  a  drug- 
dealer  client,  money  the  Florida  judge  in  the  case  believed:; 
belonged  to  the  government.  Linda  Deutsch,  the  doyenne 
of  crime  reporters,  said  to  me  one  day  about  the  Simpson 
case.  "It  was  a  story  of  damage.  Everyone  connected  with 
the  case  was  damaged  by  it." 

In  late  February.  I  ran  into  Barry  Scheck  and  his  wife 
in  front  of  the  Beverly  Hills  Hotel.  He  said  he  wasn't  in 
L.A.  on  Simpson  business  but  to  receive  an  award  at  a 
dinner  that  niaht.  The  Los  Anaeles  Criminal  Courts  Bar 


Grai 


Association  presented  him  with  an  award  that  read.  "In 
:cknowledgment  and  recognition  of  his  role  as  a  member 
>f  the  'Dream  Team'  in  the  successful  defense  of  The  Peo- 
ple of  the  State  of  California  v.  Orentluil  J.  Simpson,  in  the 
Trial  of  the  Century.'"  Subsequently,  a  case  in  which 
Jcheck  and  his  partner,  Peter  Neufeld,  had  gained  notori- 
:ty  in  1992  came  back  to  haunt  them.  A  convicted  rapist, 
Cerry  Kotler,  whom  they  had  cleared  through  DNA  evi- 
ience  after  he  had  served  11  years,  was  charged  with  an- 
other rape  after  his  release. 

At  the  Brookins  Community  A.M.E.  Church  in  South 
Central  Los  Angeles,  Johnnie  Cochran  and  Carl  Douglas 
'eceived  "lawyers  of  the  year"  awards.  In  his  acceptance 
■peech,  Cochran  said  that  the  defense  team  had  won  be- 
cause God  was  on  their  side,  that  God  was  a  brother.  The 
;ongregation  cheered.  A  lot  of  churchgoers  I  know  were 
distressed  by  his  claim  of  divine  support.  It  has  since  come 
o  light  that  two  days  after  the  murders  Simpson,  accom- 
panied by  Robert  Shapiro  and  Robert  Kardashian,  went 
:o  the  Los  Angeles  office  of  Dr.  Edward  Gelb— who  once 
did  a  TV  show  with  F.  Lee  Bailey  called  Lie  Detector— and 
:.ook  a  polygraph  test  on  which  his  score  was  minus-20, 
vhich  is  classed  as  deceptive.  The  long-suppressed  story 
vas  broken  by  Harvey  Levin  of  KCBS  in  Los  Angeles. 
When  Levin  tried  to  get  Shapiro  to  make  an  on -camera 
statement  at  the  signing  of  his  book.  The  Search  for  Jit.s- 
'ice,  at  Book  Soup  on  Sunset  Boulevard,  Shapiro,  Levin 
said,  "became  manic"  and  went  on  signing  books,  ignor- 
ing him.  I  was  told  by  Fred  Goldman  that  during  Simp- 
son's deposition  for  the  civil  suit,  several  weeks  earlier. 
Daniel  Petrocelli.  Goldman's  attorney,  had  asked  Simpson 
f  he  had  taken  a  lie-detector  test.  Simpson,  under  oath, 
^aid  no. 

At  Robert  Shapiro's  New  York  book  party  at  '21,'  a 
man  who  looked  familiar  came  up  and  spoke  to  me.  He 
>vas  Richard  J.  Zuckerwar,  the  president  and  C.E.O.  of  the 
3randoe  Corporation  in  Gloversville,  New  York,  which 
manufactures  gloves.  An  expert  witness  for  the  defense,  he 
Lad  been  in  the  courtroom  one  day  during  the  trial,  but 
he  declined  to  take  the  stand.  He  startled  me  now  by  say- 
ing. "I  could  have  proven  that  the  glove  did  fit.  The  pros- 
ecution went  completely  wrong.  Why  didn't  they  go  to  the 
tanner  who  tanned  the  leather?  I  can  show  you  that  the 
glove  fit.  It's  cut  on  a  die.  When  I  heard  a  juror  say  she 
acquitted  Simpson  because  the  glove  didn't  fit,  I  couldn't 
believe  it." 

Simpson's  friend  A.  C.  Cowlings,  the  driver  of  the  white 
JBronco  in  the  freeway  chase,  maintained  a  hostile  silence 
[ibout  the  case  until  he  had  to  give  his  deposition  for  the 


KEEPING  UP  APPEARANCES 

Though  sources  close  to  Simpson  say  he  is  broke,  his  estate 

in  Brentwood  remains  as  beautifully  maintained  as  it  always  was. 


civil  suit  on  April  17.  His  statements  were  surprising.  He 
acknowledged  that  he  was  aware  that  Simpson  had  vi- 
ciously beaten  Nicole  and  had  once  thrown  her  out  of  the 
house,  which  contradicted  what  Simpson  had  said  in  his 
deposition.  Cowlings  testified  that  Nicole  had  had  an  af- 
fair with  football  star  Marcus  Allen,  who  had  been  mar- 
ried in  Simpson's  house,  but  he  refused  to  elaborate.  And 
he  took  the  Fifth  Amendment  on  questions  dealing  with 
his  activities  between  the  morning  after  the  murders  and 
the  freeway  chase. 

/  was  a  friend  of  Nicole's.  I  introduced  her  to  one 
of  her  boyfriends. 

—A  young  man  named  Lonny  who  was 

standing  on  the  step  behind  me  on  the  escalator 

at  Neiman  Marcus  in  Beverly  Hills. 

Trial  fame  fades  fast  for  some.  Judge  Lance  Ito,  who 
was  for  almost  a  year  the  most  famous  judge  in  the 
United  States,  as  well  as  the  inspiration  for  the 
Dancing  Itos  on  Jay  Leno's  Tonight  Show;  had  prac- 
tically faded  from  sight— without  ever  making  any  pub- 
lic comment  on  the  Simpson  case— when  he  was  rudely 
thrust  back  into  the  news  in  most  unfavorable  circum- 
stances. The  anonymity  he  had  sought  was  not  to  be  his. 
He  took  a  shellacking  from  prosecutor  Christopher  Dar- 
den  both  in  his  book,  In  Contempt,  and  in  an  interview 
with  Barbara  Walters  on  20/20.  Darden  said  that  John- 
nie Cochran  had  run  the  courtroom,  not  Judge  Ito.  Then 
60  Minutes  did  a  report  on  jury  tampering  in  the  Simp- 
son trial,  and  Judge  Ito  got  it  again,  for  dismissing  juror 
Francine  Florio-Bunten— who  believed  Simpson  to  be  guilty 
and  who  would  have  hung  the  jury  without  any  investi- 
gation whatsoever  after  he  received  what  I  believe  to 
have  been  an  obviously  fraudulent  anonymous  letter 
which  made  accusations  about  Florio-Bunten  and  her 
husband.  On  the  heels  of  that,  a  guilty  verdict  pro- 
nounced on  former  Lincoln  Savings  and  Loan  boss 
Charles  Keating  in  a  state  court  in  1991  Ito's  biggest 
case  before  Simpson— was  overturned  on  appeal  because 
of  an  error  Ito  had  made  in  his  (Continued  on  page  178) 

153 


"  V'1 


FULL 

moim 

RISING 


Saudi  Arabia's  answer  to 
Ivana  Trump,  Mouna  Al-Rashid 
is  newly  divorced  from  her 
husband,  a  powerful  billionaire 
confidant  of  King  Fahd's. 
As  Mouna  moves  from  the  Paris 
couture  collections  to  the 

Hollywood  A-list  scene, 
|     BOB  COLACELLO 

finds  out  why  the  Lebanese 
beauty  packed  up  her 
diamonds  and  left  a 
$200  million  yacht  and  a 
Mar-a-Lago-replica 
home  in  Riyadh 


CHANEL  NO.  1? 

Mouna,  wearing  a  black  Chanel 

dress  and  an  emerald-and-diamond  necklace, 
pauses  in  one  of  the  closets  filled  with 
accessories  in  her  house  in  Neuilly,  outside 
Paris.  She  is  one  of  the  world's  biggest  buyers 
of  Chanel  couture.  Inset,  Mouna  at  this 
year's  Vanity  Fair  Oscar  party. 


/       A  bout  two  or  three  years  ago,  I 

$      A  bought  this  fancy  yellow  diamond. 

jflk  ll  was  an  expensive  stone,  in  the 

/VA  millions.    I    begged   my  husband 

/  ^A  to  buy  1!  for  me.  because  I  want- 

/     ^A  ed    to   prove    to   myself  that    1 

/        Ubi  was  still  cute  and  wonderful  and 

/  HA  deserved  a  big  stone.    He  said. 

J  w»  'Do  you  think  1  own  a  bank0'  1 

/  ^K  said   yes.    1    know    it's   silly,   but 

/  wl  1   just   wanted  that  stone,   and   I 

L _■■___  bought  it.  It  was  117  carats  and 

called  the  Hope  of  Africa." 

Mouna  Al-Rashid,  the  just-divorced  wife  of  Saudi  Ara- 
bian billionaire  Nasser  Al-Rashid,  interrupted  her 
story  to  pour  tea.  It  was  the  week  of 
the  haute  couture  collections 
in  Paris,  and  she  was 
going  to  most  of  the  big 
shows— Chanel,  Saint  Lau- 
rent, Ungaro,  Oscar  de 
la  Renta  for  Balmain— 
with  one  of  her  new  Amer- 
ican friends,  Deeda  Blair, 
the  Washington  hostess  and 
aids  fund-raiser.  Then  she 
would  be  off  to  New  York, 
where  she  would  sit  be- 
tween Prince  Dimitri  of 
Yugoslavia  and  investment 
banker  Dixon  Boardman  at 
the  $10,000  table  she  had 
taken  for  the  Save  Venice  ben- 
efit at  the  Rainbow  Room, 
before  heading  back  to  Riyadh 
to  discuss  custody  arrangements 
concerning  her  five  children 
with  her  husband  of  some  17  years. 
We  were  talking  on  a  long  white  sofa  under  an 
Orientalist  painting  in  the  living  room  of  her  house  in  the 
rich  suburb  of  Neuilly.  A  jukebox  glowed  at  the  other  end 
of  the  room.  She  was  wearing  a  brown  Chanel  turtleneck, 
a  bronze  cut-velvet  miniskirt  from  Betsey  Johnson,  thigh- 
high  Chanel  boots,  and  what  she  called  her  daytime,  "ten- 
nis" diamond— an  emerald-cut,  25-carat  white  diamond  in  a 
plain  gold  setting. 

In  the  past  few  months,  Mouna  Al-Rashid,  whose  sensu- 
al features  and  svelte  figure  bring  to  mind  the  Italian  movie 
star  Claudia  Cardinale,  had  emerged  from  her  walled  com- 
pound in  the  Saudi  capital  to  make  herself  the  most  talked- 
about  divorcee  since  Ivana  Trump.  Although  she  now 
prefers  to  use  the  Arabic  form  of  her  maiden  name.  Al- 
Ayoub,  like  the  Bouncy  Czech  the  Saudi  Social  Cyclone  has 
become  a  one-name  phenomenon:  Mouna.  Like  Donald 
Trump,  her  ex-husband  made  his  fortune  in  the  building 
business  and  indulged  his  wife  with  a  world-class  yacht, 
the  $200  million  Lady  Moura  (for  Mou-na  Ra-shid).  But  un- 
like Trump,  Nasser  Al-Rashid,  who  is  one  of  the  closest 
confidants  of  King  Fahd,  abhors  publicity.  Friends  say  he 

156 


"I  couldnt  be 

the  ideal,  wonderful 

Saudi  wife. 

I  was  a  foreigner 

and  young 

and  differentr 


looked  on  disapprovingly  as  his  wife  party-hopped  her 
way  from  Monte  Carlo  to  Beverly  Hills  to  New  York  tdi 
Paris  in  one  of  his  private  jets,  bedazzling  everyone  from 
Prince  Albert  to  Oliver  Stone.  Catherine  Riviere,  directrice 
of  haute  couture  at  Chanel  in  Paris,  where  Mouna  is  ond 
of  the  biggest  buyers,  says,  "She  is  like  someone  who's  been 
let  out  of  jail.  She  wants  to  learn,  to  see,  to  go.  She  has  to 
eat  life."  One  Arab  princess  counters  with  a  sniff,  "She's 
very  indiscreet.  It's  completely  against  our  culture  to  behave] 
like  that.  He  had  his  hands  full  with  her.  She  always  said 
'I'm  a  prisoner.'  On  one  of  the  biggest  boats  in  the  world?l 
That's  a  prison  I  wouldn't  mind  at  all." 

Mouna  took  a  sip  of  tea  and  continued  the  story  of  the 
yellow  diamond.  "When  my  husband  and  I 
decided  to  get  a  divorce,  I  thought  it  waa 
time  to  sell  it.  It  wasn't  because  1 
needed  money,  but  I  knew  I  wasn't! 
going  to  have  bodyguards  oi) 
drive  in  bulletproof  cars  any 
more.  Nobody  offered  me  the 
price  I  paid.  So  I  went  to  a  deal' 
er  in  New  York  and  told  him,  '| 
have  an  idea.  I  read  in  Christie's 
and  Sotheby's  catalogues  that  the 
diamond  of  Mrs.  Such-and-Such 
sold  for  $8  million.'  I  asked,  'Can 
I  name  it  after  me  and  send  it  to 
the  Middle  East  and  make  a  few 
million  dollars?'  He  said,  'We  have 
to  cut  it  to  rename  it.'  He  took  ma 
to  see  this  old  man,  who  said  that  there 
was  a  10  percent  chance  of  the  stona 
being  shattered.  I  said,  'Forget  it.! 
Then  I  started  thinking  about  it.  It's 
like  this  big  risk  that  you  take  once  in 
your  lifetime.  One  morning  I  called 
the  old  man  and  said,  'Cut  it.'  It  is  no 
the  largest  intense -yellow  diamond  in  the 
world— 112  carats.  It's  called  the  Mouna 
Diamond,  and  it's  worth  $20  million.' 
Before  we  left  for  John  Galliano's  d 
but  show  for  the  House  of  Givenchy,  Mouna  offered  me 
tour  of  her  house.  Most  of  the  second  floor,  it  seemed,  was 
being  used  as  closet  space.  "That's  the  winter  Chanel,"  sha 
said  as  we  walked  from  one  rack -filled  room  to  another 
"This  is  the  summer  Chanel.  This  is  for  Chanel  acces 
sories.  And  upstairs  I  have  another  dressing  room  foul 
the  non-Chanels— the  couture  from  other  designers  likt 
Saint  Laurent  and  Dior."  She  laughed  and  added,  "Clothe; 
give  me  the  security  that  nothing  else  gives  me— not  ever| 
a  man." 

At  the  Galliano  show,  Mouna  was  seated  front  and  cenj 
ter,  along  with  Bernard  Arnault,  the  house's  owner] 
Philippe  Douste-Blazy,  the  French  minister  of  culture,  Mr 
and  Mrs.  Henry  Kravis,  and  Sao  Schlumberger,  the  firs] 
Parisian  social  queen  to  endorse  Galliano.  "It's  not  unusua 
to  see  Arab  women  at  fashion  shows,"  Christopher  Dick 
ey,  Newsweek'?,  Paris-bureau  chief  and  Middle  East  region 
al  editor,  told  me  later.  "What  was  (Continued  on  page  174\ 


SV* 


t. 


1         _T 


*      ->T' 


-^g^sa^ 


GOING  PLACES 


Though  her  ex-husband 
kept  the  344-foot 
t  and  the  private  planes, 
Mouna— dressed  in 
Chanel  and  wearing  an 
erald-cut,  25-carat  white 
diamond— still  globe- 
trots extensively  with  her 
matching  collection  of 
Louis  Vuitton  luggage. 


... 
= 


5i 


Photograph  by  HENRY  GROSSMAN 


^»» 


Braj 


died  when  he  was  born, 


introduced  him  to  Toots  Shor 
1  Joe  DiMaggio,  a  wealthy  and 
rerful  couple,  Averell  and 
ie  Harriman,  who  took  him 

to  live  on  their  MLOOO-acre 

7 

imily  estate,  Arden,  and  a 

amoi    is  "stepmother," 

da  Harriman,  who 

;d  him  out  again— in  an 

xcerpt  from^his  memg|0J 

*  Ghost  of  a  Chartice, 

PETER  DUCHIN  narrates  his 

:esque,  true-life  fairy  tale 


k»5$ 


Mrf3M*  ■■!>[< 


.in  at  the 
sonette  in  the  St.  Regis 
.  el  in  Manhattan,  1964. 
"The  club  was  my  living  room, 
my  rumpus  room,  my  dining 
room,  my  stage,"  he  says. 


A  rare  photograph 
of  Peter  and  his 
mother,  Marjorie 
Oelrichs,  who  died 
soon  after  in 
New  York,  1937. 
Her  chic 
obstetrician 
was  off  hunting. 
Left  to  right: 
friend  Virginia 
Chambers, 
Eddy  Duchin, 
Marjorie's 
mother. 


y  earliest 


image  of  Averell  Harriman  is  that  of 
a  tall,  lanky  man,  moving  purposefully 
and  gracefully  against  the  wintry  land- 
scape at  Arden,  the  Harriman  family 
estate  40  miles  north  of  New  York  City. 
Ave:  remote  but  sharply  etched,  al- 
ways off  somewhere  even  when  he 
was  sitting  right  in  front  of  you,  por- 
ing over  the  morning  newspapers. 

Today  the  New  York  State  Thruway 
and  Route  6  run  right  through  Ar- 
den, not  far  from  the  cottage  where 
I  lived  with  the  Harrimans  when  I 
was  a  boy.  You  can  hear  the  trucks 
and  cars  whizzing  by  at  all  hours  of 
the  day  and  night.  The  family  says 
that  the  original  plan  put  Route  6  on 
top  of  the  stables  and  the  cottage, 
and  that  Ave,  who  had  been  governor 
of  New  York,  had  it  moved.  Never- 
theless, the  thruway  is  palpably  close 
by,  and  relentlessly  humming.  When  I 
was  a  child,  the  only  hum  you  ever 
heard  was  that  of  the  caretaker's  per- 
fectly balanced  and  oiled  manual  lawn 
mower,  neatly  slicing  the  grass.  It  might 
be  joined  by  the  growls  of  three  or 
four  of  Ave's  Labrador  retrievers  play- 
ing with  a  ball,  or  the  sound  of  horses 
pawing  the  gravel  in  the  driveway. 

During  the  war,  when  he  was  run- 
ning the  lend-lease  program  in  Lon- 
don, and  later,  when  he  was  ambassador 

160 


to  Moscow,  I  saw  very  little  of  Ave. 
But  when  he  did  drop  in  at  Arden,  I 
knew  that  "the  boss,"  as  the  caretak- 
er called  him,  had  arrived.  Suddenly, 
everything  would  speed  up.  Horses 
would  be  readied  in  their  stalls  in  case 
Ave  wanted  to  ride  into  the  fields. 
The  old  Pontiac  station  wagon  would 
be  brought  out  into  the  driveway,  all 
cleaned  up  and  polished.  Ave  would 
step  out  of  the  Lincoln  Zephyr  in  his 
double-breasted  suit,  button-down  shirt, 
tie.  and  shiny  black  shoes  and  would 
disappear  into  the  cottage,  only  to  reap- 
pear minutes  later  in  his  country  clothes: 
a  raggedy  V-necked  terry-cloth  pullover 
of  dark  or  light-  blue,  creaseless  tan 
corduroys,  sturdy  rubber-soled  brown 
shoes.  The  servants  would  be  greeted 
with  a  smile  and  a  brief  hello.  I  would 
get  a  light  kiss  on  the  cheek. 

In  my  scrapbook  is  a  snapshot  of 
me  when  I  was  five  or  six,  sitting 
with  Ave  in  a  horse  and  buggy.  It 
must  have  been  one  of  the  first  times 
he  and  I  went  on  an  outing  together. 
I'm  wearing  a  tie,  which  means  it  was 
Sunday  and  we  were  on  our  way  to 
St.  John's,  the  Arden  chapel.  Ave  is 
in  country  tweeds,  wool  tie,  and  jodh- 
purs. I  look  happy  and  proud:  the  lit- 
tle lord  of  the  manor. 

I  didn't  start  out  as  the  lord  of 
the  manor.  In  fact,  my  arrival 
in  the  world  was  a  disaster. 
When  I  was  growing  up  I  had 
only  a  sketchy  knowledge  of  the 
first  months  of  my  life,  but  a 
good  account  of  this  time  was 
given  by  Anita  Loos,  the  Hollywood 
screenwriter  and  author  of  Gentlemen 
Prefer  Blondes.  "Neetsie,"  as  I  knew 
her.  recalls  in  her  memoirs  that  she  took 


a  two-week  leave  of  absence  from  MGM 
in  the  summer  of  1937  to  be  with  her 
friend  Marjorie  Duchin,  who  was  preg- 
nant with  me.  Neetsie  came  to  Newl 
York  and  discovered  that  my  mother) 
had  been  booked  into  a  fashionable  hos- 
pital by  her  mother. 

That  hospital  was  located  above  thef 
Colony  Restaurant.  .  .  .  The  majority  of  its 
clientele  were  either  alcoholics  bent  on 
sobering  up,  hypochondriacs  pampering 
their  egos,  gourmands  trying  to  reduce,  on 
middle-aged   beauties   hiding   out   for   at 
facelift.  The  hospital  was  noted  for  its  le- 
nient house  rules:  patients  could  order 
gourmet  meals  sent  up  from  the  restaurant 
below;  nurses  would  look  the  other  way. 
when  dipsomaniacs  sent  out  for  booze,  on 
the  overweight  phoned  down  ...  for  a  few 
crepes  Suzette.  There  were  no  restrictions 
against  visitors,  who  used  to  drop  in  at  all 
hours  to  enjoy  cocktails  or  nightcaps  with 
their  pampered  friends. 

Just  as  my  mother  was  about  to  be 
admitted  to  this  stylish  fun  house, 
Anita  was  called  back  to  MGM. 

I  was  very  disappointed  not  to  be  around  I 
when  the  baby  came,  and  when  Marge  sawv 
me  off  at  the  station,  it  was  a  pretty  melan-i- 
choly  goodbye,  which  I  put  down  to  thee 
war  clouds  that  overshadowed  everyone's  s 
personal  affairs  in  those  dark  days.  While 
waiting  for  train  time,  Marge  said  a  little 
uneasily,  "Going  into  that  rowdy  old  hos- 
pital to  have  a  baby  doesn't  seem  to  make 
very  good  sense,  does  it?" 

"Good  sense"  wasn't  the  phrase  for  it; 
"tragic"  would  have  been   a  better  de 
scription.  I  boarded  the  train,  waved  good-l 
bye  to  Marge  through  the  window,  and  thatil 
was  the  last  time  I  ever  saw  her. 

Hearing  that  my  mother  had  gone 
into  labor,  my  father  flew  to  New  York! 
from  Chicago,  where  he  and  his  band 
had  been  playing  at  the  Palmer  House 
Hotel.  Everything  seemed  fine,  and  he 
flew  back  to  Chicago,  only  to  turnii 
around  the  next  day  when  he  heard  thatl 
things  weren't  so  fine.  He  was  at  my 
mother's  bedside  when  she  died,  six 
days  after  my  birth.  Her  chic  obstetri- 
cian couldn't  be  found.  According  to 
Anita  Loos,  he'd  gone  off  hunting  in 
the  wilds  of  Canada.  Two  years  earli-i 
er,  my  parents'  marriage  had  made 
headlines.  "A  romance  between  Broad- 
way and  Park  Avenue,"  they  called  it.  % 
My  mother  had  just  redecorated  their  ■'  tSand 


At 
tadi 


Excerpted  from  Ghost  of  a  Chance:  A  Memoir, 
by  Peter  Duchin,  to  be  published  in  June  by 
Random  House,  Inc.;  ©  1996  by  Peter  Duchin. 


fa 


— "™  ""1TTI 


iter  with  his  father, 
mdleader  Eddy  Duchin, 
d  his  surrogate  mother, 
larie  "Ma"  Harriman, 
Sands  Point,  Long 
land,  circa  1940.  While 
ldy  toured,  Peter  was 
ised  by  the  Harrimans. 


^»r 


When  Marjorie 

Oelrichs  married 

Eddy  Duchin, 

she  was  dropped 

from  the 

Social  Register. 

Portrait  by 

Cecil  Beaton, 

circa  1935. 


^  — 


'*$2& 


9h      *S>      -  *' 


r        f'      i 


erand 
at  the  piano, 
New  York  City, 
circa  1950.  Initially 
Peter  disliked 
playing  and  quit 
lessons. 


At  the  MGM  commissary,  about  193 
left  to  right,  writer  "Hoppy"  Hopkm| 
Anita  Loos,  Eddy  and  Marjorie  Duc|^ 
and  director  John  Enters* 


V 


& 


V#*- 


Marie  and 
Averell  Harriman 
campaigning 
for  the  New  YorkJ 
governorship, 
1954. 


///-/ 


Peter  with  his 

mother's  best  friend, 

writer  Anita  Loos, 

in  Hollywood,  circa  1940. 


Peter  and  Avejell  at  Arden, 
about  1943.  in  alrorse  and  buggy 
on  one  pf  their  first  outings. 


m!> 


apartment  at  2  East  60th  Street  in  an- 
ticipation of  my  arrival.  Now  her  fu- 
neral was  being  held  there. 

In  one  of  my  boxes  of  memo- 
rabilia is  an  album  of  pho- 
tographs by  Cecil  Beaton, 
showing  my  parents  as  they 
were  during  their  Fitzgeraldian 
romance.  I've  always  been 
haunted  by  one  photograph:  it 
shows  my  father— sleek  black  hair,  din- 
ner jacket,  white  cuffs  studded  with 
gold  cuff  links,  wide  Ipana  smile— gaz- 
ing at  my  mother  as  though  she's  the 
most  wonderful  creature  in  the  world. 
Recently,  I  received  from  Beaton's  bi- 
ographer Hugo  Vickers  two  extracts 
from  the  photographer's  diary,  both 
written  in  the  30s.  The  first  is  dated 
"Summer  1937."  It  was  written  on  the 
day  that  Beaton,  then  on  holiday  in 
Capri,  learned  that  his  great  friend  Mar- 
jorie  Oelrichs  had  just  died: 

It  is  as  if  all  trees  had  died,  all  skies,  all 
fruit,  all  music— so  essential  a  part  of  ex- 
istence was  Marjorie.  .  .  .  Marjorie  was 
one  of  my  best  friends  in  the  most  serious 
sense  of  the  word.  .  .  .  She  really  put  her- 
self out  for  my  benefit.  When  I  had  con- 
fided to  her  my  lack  of  sex  life  and  that  I 
had  never  been  to  bed  with  a  woman,  she 
volunteered  her  services  in  my  first  exper- 
iment—and if  this  sounds  comic,  it  was 
done  from  the  best  motives. 

The  second  extract  is  from  October  L 
two  months  later.  It  was  written  after 
Beaton  had  come  to  New  York  and 
stopped  in  at  my  parents'  apartment. 
And  it  contains  what  is  probably  the 
earliest  vivid  description  of  me: 

When  [a  picture  of]  the  baby  was  shown, 
my  sensations  were  fierce.  I  loathed  the 
little  beast  that  is  wickedly  ugly,  lying  on 
its  back,  wriggling,  farting  with  the  over- 
long  body,  dark  hair,  and  pig-snouted.  I 
loathed  this  iig  devil  that  together  with 
the  doctor  was  the  cause  of  the  death  of 
one  of  the  suongest,  most  courageous  and 
sympathetic  friends  I  have  ever  had. 

Not  long  after  I  was  born,  I  devel- 
oped severe  respiratory  difficulties,  and 
I  was  not  expected  to  live  for  more 
than  a  few  weeks.  I  was  put  into  an 
oxygen  tent,  and  assigned  to  a  nurse 
who  specialized  in  babies  in  trouble. 
This  was  Chissie,  who  saved  my  life. 
After  I  had  been  in  the  hospital  for 
nine  months,  she  and  I  moved  to  Ar- 

163 


Kim  Novak  threw  me  a  catlike  smile.  "Yourenotf 


den.  My  father  was  touring  with  his 
band,  and  Marie  Harriman,  Ave's  wife, 
who  had  been  a  good  friend  of  my 
mother's,  offered  to  take  me  in.  She 
and  Neetsie  and  Chissie  were  my 
guardian  angels. 

y  scrapbooks  are 
filled  with  letters  Dad 
wrote  to  me.  During 
the  era  of  big  bands, 
my  father  and  his  or- 
chestra appeared  in 
the  best  hotels,  the 
best  casinos,  the  best  dance  halls.  His 
records  were  played  constantly  on  the 
radio.  His  distinctive  piano  style  was 
widely  imitated,  and  it  spawned  an  in- 
dustry of  sheet-music  arrangements, 
featuring  his  trademark  smile  and 
slicked-down  hair  on  the  covers. 

By  the  end  of  the  30s,  Dad  was  known 
as  ''the  Magic  Fingers  of  Radio."  His 
hands  were  insured  for  $150,000.  Sergei 
Rachmaninoff  once  told  him  he  was 
good  enough  to  play  classical  music. 
But  how  much  money  did  he  make  play- 
ing in  a  band?  the  great  virtuoso  asked. 
When  he  heard  my  father's  answer, 
Rachmaninoff  said,  "Forget  classical. 
Stick  to  what  you're  doing." 

I  had  my  first  memorable  outing  with 
Dad  after  the  war  when  I  was  eight 
or  nine.  I  remember  holding  his  hand 
as  we  walked  down  the  street  in  New 
York  City.  Before  we  reached  the  cor- 
ner, we  were  stopped  by  two  girls. 

One  said,  "Wow!  Eddy  Duchin! 
Can  we  get  your  autograph?" 

I  watched  as  my  father  scribbled 
his  name  in  their  books. 

This  was  the  first  time  I'd  looked 
at  my  father  through  the  eyes  of  oth- 
ers. For  the  next  20  blocks,  the  words 
rang  in  my  ears:  "Wow!  Eddy  Duchin!" 
Shortly  after  the  autograph  episode, 
I  got  another  view  of  my  dad  in  the 
world  when  we  visited  Toots  Shor's 
restaurant  on  51st  Street.  My  first  im- 
pression was  of  a  cavernous,  smoky 
room  full  of  men,  most  of  them  big- 
ger than  Dad,  who  himself  was  over 
six  feet  tall  but  slender.  Everyone 
knew  him.  "Hey,  Eddy!"  they  called 
out.  "How  ya  doin',  Eddy?" 

Then  the  biggest  of  them  all  came 
up.  Everything  about  Toots  Shor  was 
huge.  Stomach.  Feet.  Hands.  Lips. 
His  face  was  like  a  big  slab  of  steak, 

164 


red  and  mottled  and  rubbery.  His 
black  hair  was  slicked  back  and  part- 
ed straight  down  the  middle.  His  bel- 
low filled  the  room  as  he  wrapped 
Dad  in  a  hug  and  said,  "Eddy!  Where 
ya  been?" 

"Here's  Peter,  Toots,"  Dad  said.  "Pe- 
ter, this  is  Mr.  Shor  .  .  .  Toots  Shor." 

I  was  hoisted  aloft.  "Pete,  kid!  How 
are  ya?"  He  set  me  down.  "Let's  go 
in  and  eat  something,  for  Chrissake." 

Dad  put  an  arm  around  me  and 
we  followed  the  giant  into  a  sea  of 
red  leather  and  white  linen. 

Toots  bellowed,  "Hey,  Joe,  look 
who  I  got!  An  old  buddy!" 

Two  men  were  sitting  at  a  round  table 
in  the  corner.  Between  them  was  a  very 
small,  pretty  blonde  woman  wearing  a 
little  hat  with  a  half -veil.  One  of  the 
men  stood  up  and  embraced  my  father. 
I  almost  died:  it  was  Joe  DiMaggio. 

The  blonde  got  up.  She  was  no 
taller  than  I  was.  "This  Eddy's  kid?" 
she  said,  giving  me  a  wink.  "You 
come  over  here.  Sit  next  to  me.  I've 
heard  so  much  aboutcha." 

"Meet  Husky,  my  wife,"  Toots  said. 

She  flashed  her  dimples  and  nudged 
me  in  the  ribs.  "He  calls  me  Husky. 
You  can  call  me  Baby." 

Dad  said,  "Peter,  I'd  like  you  to 
meet  Joe  DiMaggio." 

The  greatest  man  in  the  world  held 
out  his  hand. 

"Hey,  kid,  nice  to  meet  you.  Say  hi 
to  my  brother,  Dom." 

He  gestured  toward  the  other  man 
at  the  table.  I  recognized  him  from 
my  baseball  cards  as  Dominick  DiMag- 
gio, center  fielder  for  the  Red  Sox. 

"Come  on,  you  bums,"  Toots  said. 
"Let's  eat." 

So  I  became  a  member  of  the  most 
exclusive  club  I've  ever  joined.  From 
the  day  we  met,  Toots  was  the  most 
generous  man  in  my  life.  Along  with 
Marie  and  Ave,  my  guardian  Donald 
Stralem  and  his  wife,  Jean,  my  step- 
mother, Chiquita  (Dad  remarried  in 
1947),  and  Toots  and  Baby  came  to 
my  graduation  at  Yale  in  New  Haven. 
It  was  an  awfully  odd-looking  group, 
but  it  was  family— the  only  one  I  had. 
Afterward  we  all  had  lunch  at  the 
Old  Heidelburg.  Leaving  the  restau- 
rant, Toots  nudged  me  and  said,  "You 
see,  Pete,  all  those  millionaires  and 
look  who  gets  stuck  with  the  check." 


r. 

to- 


I 


For  the  most  part  I  took  j  j  ^ 
in  only  obliquely  that  Dad 
was  a  star— when,  for  in- 
stance, the  Philco  radio 
in  the  kitchen  at  Arden 
was  turned  on  and  I 
would  hear  a  voice  say, 
"And  now,  ladies  and  gentlemen  .  .  . 
Eddy  Duchin  and  His  Orchestra  com- 
ing to  you  live  from  ..." 

Back  in  the  30s  and  40s,  Arden 
comprised  some  10,000  acres  (today,  X- 
it's  been  whittled  down  to  roughly  i 
3,000).  At  the  top  sat  the  immense -P 
limestone-and-granite  manor  house  -NR 
built  by  E.  H.  Harriman,  the  con--:H 
struction  of  which  had  taken  six  years, .  p 
from  1905  to  1911.  It  was  the  citadel  m 
of  a  completely  self-sufficient  world, .  1 1 
which  included  a  funicular  railway  to  >» 
carry  provisions  up  and  down  thepPJ- 
hill,  a  power  plant  big  enough  to  sup-|»p 
ply  the  surrounding  area,  and  the  largest  t  Sen 
privately  owned  pipe  organ  in  the  coun-  -few 
try— plus  a  bowling  alley.  Now  thelpt 
house  belongs  to  Columbia  Universi--?!! 
ty  and  is  used  as  a  conference  center.  M 

In  time,  I  would  become  completely  t1! . 
familiar  with  Arden:  the  40  bedrooms,  M> 
the  stables,  the  polo  field,  the  three  *Mt 
lakes,  the  trout  stream,  the  forests,  M 
the  playpen  with  sand,  the  swing,  built  [fit 
just  for  me.   I  came  to  regard  the -'tie 
caretaker,  the  riding  master,  the  dog- 
and  gamekeeper,  the  local  minister  rfon 
who  christened  me  in  the  estate's  lit — *he"d 
tie  Episcopalian  church,  and  all  the; 
sweet  household  maids  as  my  family.  ^ 
I  would  learn  to  fish  and  shoot;  to  >| 
play  polo,  croquet,  gin,  canasta,  and  It 
bridge;  to  plant  and  pick  lettuce,  car- 
rots,  radishes,   and  corn.   I  would! 
learn  how  to  muck  out  the  stalls,  to> 
saddle-soap  a  saddle,  to  show  a  horse, ,] 
to  train  dogs.  Whenever  Marie  andi 
Ave  had  guests,  I  was  the  only  child  i 
in  a  roomful  of  great  personages.  II 
don't  ever  remember  feeling  lonely. 

I  had  been  at  Arden  only  a  few 
months  when  I  was  led  one  evening 
into  the  oak-beamed  room  where  Marie 
Harriman  was  sitting  with  a  couple 
of  friends,  drinking  a  martini.  As  I 
approached  the  sofa,  my  face  was  burn- 
ing. Marie  looked  up  and  said,  "What 
is  it,  darling?" 

I  rushed  at  her,  grabbed  her  knees 
with  both  arms,  and  cried,  "Is  it  all 
right  if  I  call  you  Ma?" 


tie  Peter,  are  yo 


She  set  her  glass  down  and  pulled 
le  to  her.  "Of  course." 

From  then  on,  I  never  called  her 
ny thing  else. 

a  was  tall  and  chest- 
nut-haired, and  her 
great  charm  was  in 
no  way  lessened  by 
the  thick,  tinted  glass- 
es she  wore  after  her 
operation  in  1941  for 
laucoma,  a  condition  that  made  her 
early  blind  for  the  rest  of  her  life. 
he  would  lean  down  and  kiss  me, 
nd  I  would  be  thrilled  by  the  soft- 
ess  of  her  skin,  the  silkiness  of  her 
ress,  the  scent  of  her  perfume. 
I  loved  the  way  Ma  talked.  She 
ras  totally  direct,  no  bullshit.  The 
aughter  of  a  prominent  Democratic 
iwyer,  Sheridan  Norton,  and  a  won- 
erful  old  character  of  a  mother, 
leulah,  who  was  part  Jewish  and 
art  Irish,  she  had  a  mongrel's  love 
f  the  unconventional.  She  spoke  out 
f  one  side  of  her  mouth  in  a  sort 
f  drawl  through  clenched  teeth.  It 
'as  one  of  the  things  that  must  have 
ndeared  her  to  a  man  she  always 
lid  she'd  found  "immensely  attrac- 
ve"— Al  Capone.  In  the  20s,  when 
tie  was  married  to  her  first  husband, 
onny  Whitney,  a  great-great-grand- 
Dn  of  old  Commodore  Vanderbilt, 
he'd  gambled  with 


Peter  with 

hi  Novak  at  a 

nightclub  in 

-■ewYork  in  1956 

-  Turing  the  shooting 

of  The  Eddy  Duchin 

Story,  in  which 

Novak  played  Peter's 

mother  and  Tyrone 

Power  his  father. 

"I  got  as  close  to 

Oedipal  ecstasy  as 

I'll  ever  know," 

Duchin  remembers. 

Inset:  Power  and 

Novak  in  a  publicity 

still  from  the  r L 


Sweetheart, 
Ma  Harriman 
said,  "I  dont  want 
to  interrupt  all 
the  fun  you  re 
having,  but 

I  think  its  about 

time  you  got  your 

„ 

ass  in  gear. 


Capone  at  the  casino  in  Nassau. 

Ma  chewed  gum  and  smoked 
Viceroys  in  white  plastic  holders 
that  were  scattered  everywhere  in 
china  and  silver  cups.  She  had  a 
habit  of  emptying  the  contents  of 
one  ashtray  into  a  larger  ashtray 
and  carrying  the  whole  mess  out 
to  the  kitchen.  It  was  the  only  time 
I  ever  saw  her  go  into  that  room. 

Ma  could  cut  through  any  phoni- 
ness  or  stickiness,  usually  with  a 
crack  that  began,  "For  Chrissake!" 
She  loved  talking  about  sex,  and 
she  swore  like  a  trooper.  She  may 
have  coined  the  expression  "rat- 
fuck,"  which  is  what  she  called 
parties  that  were  too  big.  I  don't 
know  what  she  had  against  the  City 
of  Brotherly  Love,  but  she  called 
a  really  terrible  big  party  a  "Phil- 
adelphia rat-fuck." 


M  ~  nderneath    Ma's 

fl  salty  exterior,  she 

B  was   deeply   vul- 

B  nerable.  I've  often 

■  wondered  whether 

B  I      this  had  to  do  with 

^^  /  the  fact  that  nei- 
ther of  her  husbands  was  sexual- 
ly faithful  to  her.  Her  first  marriage, 
to  Sonny  Whitney,  was  wrecked  by 
his  roving  eye.  Her  second  nearly 
came  apart  during  the  war  when 
Ave's  romance  in  London  with 
Pamela  Churchill,  who  was  mar- 
ried to  Winston's  son,  Randolph, 
was  splashed  all  over  the  front  pages. 
Ma  had  stayed  behind  in  New 
York,  where  she  was  recovering 
from  her  eye  operation.  She  had 
heard  of  the  affair  from  friends  and 
didn't  seem  particularly  bothered, 
dismissing  it  as  "one  of  those 
wartime  flings."  But  when  it  hit 
the  newspapers,  she  fired  off  a 
telegram  to  Ave 


Opposite:  Peter  with  a 

fashion  model  in  a  1963 

Bert  Stern  spread 

in  Vogue  which  featured 

New  York's  stylish 

men  of  the  moment. 

Left:  Peter  working  at 

the  St.  Regis,  1963. 

Insets:  Peter's  Decca 

albums  from 

the  early  1960s. 


with  the  ultimatum  that  he'd  better 
stop  playing  around  or  he'd  be  facing 
the  most  "costly  divorce  in  the  history 
of  the  Republic."  Years  later,  laughing 
about  it,  she  remarked,  "I  was  very 
proud  of  the  word  'Republic.'" 

I  believe  it  was  only  when  Ave  ran 
for  governor  of  New  York  in  1954  that 
he  realized  what  an  asset  she  was.  With 
her  warmth,  utter  lack  of  snobbery  and 
pretension,  and  ease  with  all  sorts  of 
people,  Ma  was  a  great  campaigner,  es- 
pecially in  contrast  to  the  candidate. 
Ave  had  stammered  as  a  boy,  and  he 
was  a  stiff,  dreadful  public  speaker. 
But  Ma  could  wade  through  any  crowd, 
looking  absolutely  thrilled  to  be  there, 
making  new  friends  wherever  she  went. 

I  was  probably  six  or  seven  when 
I  began  thinking  of  Ave  as 
the  father  I  wished  I  had.  I 
knew  I  had  "Dad,"  but  Ave, 
who  clearly  operated  on  a  more 
commanding  level  than  any- 
body else,  was  the  father  I  want- 
ed. As  long  as  I  was  doing  something 
with  Ave,  I  felt  comfortable.  He  didn't 
like  me  just  hanging  around— he  real- 


ly didn't  like  anyone  just  hanging 
around.  I've  always  thought  Ave  pre- 
ferred animals  to  people.  He  loved  to 
command,  and  the  animals  loved  to 
obey.  "Heel!"  he'd  say  to  a  dog.  When 
the  dog  did,  a  smile  would  spread  across 
Ave's  face.  There  were  always  dogs 
around.  Ma  had  her  wirehaired  dachs- 
hunds and,  later,  Jack  Russell  terri- 
ers. Ave  had  his  Labs.  Once,  down  in 
Hobe  Sound,  his  Florida  estate,  he 
saw  one  of  his  aides  throwing  a  stick 
on  the  beach  for  a  favorite  Lab  named 
Brum.  "Goddamnit!"  I  heard  him 
mutter.  "No  man  should  ever  play 
with  another  man's  dog!" 

All  through  my  childhood,  I  spent 
most  of  my  Christmas  and  spring  va- 
cations at  Hobe  Sound,  staying  in 
Ma  and  Ave's  big,  white  oceanfront 
house  on  Jupiter  Island.  A  45-minute 
drive  north  of  Palm  Beach,  the  island 
had  been  developed  back  in  the  20s 
as  a  winter  place  by  Joseph  Verner 
Reed,  a  cultivated,  wealthy  business- 
man from  Denver,  and  his  wife,  Per- 
melia  Pryor,  sister  of  Samuel  Pryor, 
one  of  the  founders  of  Pan  Am.  Over 
the  years,  several  hundred  rich  fami- 
lies with  sufficient  background  and 
character  to  pass  the  Reeds'  muster 
had  bought  land  on  the  island  and 
built  large,  discreet  winter  houses. 

Hobe  was  Never-Never  Land.  I'd 
wake  at  five  in  the  morning  and  head 
out  across  the  lawn  with  my  fly  rod. 
At  sunrise,  I'd  be  standing  in  my  sneak- 
ers, knee-deep  in  the  warm  inland 
waters  around  the  golf  course,  casting 
my  popping  bug  for  redfish,  snook. 


Above:  Peter  and  his  first  wife,  Cheray, 

at  their  wedding  reception  at  the 

St.  Regis  Roof.  1964.  Six  hundred  people 

came  and  Count  Basie  played. 

Right'  Peter  with  his  second  wife, 

Brooke  Hayward,  in  Venice.  19S4. 


or  sea  trout  feeding  in  the  shallows.*  *i\" 

Ave  remained  a  father  figure  follL; 
me  all  my  life.  He  was  the  man  wholib, 
would  give  me  the  news  in  1951  thatUjid: 
Dad  had  died.  He  would  attend  mJJLe 
graduations  from  Eaglebrook,  Hotch-4fr 
kiss,  and  Yale.  He  was  always  readjjjjle 
with  advice,  emphasizing  that  it  waitM 
wise  to  get  as  broad  an  education  as  [tie. 
possible,  to  study  ancient  history,  phi*  H 
losophy,  and  art  as  well  as  the  mod-lfe 
ern  stuff.  Usually,  he  ended  sucmL 
conversations  with  "Don't  waste  youijtW 
time  playing  bridge,  which  is  what  Il|fo' 
did  too  damn  much  of  at  Yale." 

When  I  went  off  to  Paris  for  my  "junior* 
year  abroad"  in  1956  and  spent  several  ifcra 
months  living  on  a  barge  anchored  in'  I 
the  Seine,  hanging  out  at  the  Crazy  Horse  <W 
Saloon  with  the  showgirls  and  staying|tk 
up  most  of  the  night  in  jazz  clubs,  itjik 
was  Ave  who  came  to  fetch  me  home.Ueh 

One  morning  a  beautiful  young  wom-kir 
an  was  lying  next  to  me  on  the  barge.fthai: 
Both  of  us  were  naked  and  asleepfti!? 
when  a  rap  on  the  hatch  jolted  mefe 
awake.  I  jumped  out  of  bed  and  slid':| 
back  the  cover.  '  i  v 

The  first  thing  I  saw  was  a  pair  ofHWt 
black  wing-tip  shoes;  the  next  thing,  airy, 
pair  of  blue  pin -striped  trouser  legsAfoK] 
finally,  the  face  of  Ave  in  his  gray  fe-?j  | 
dora,  squinting  down  at  me. 

"How  are  you,  Petey?" 

"Ave!"  I  said,  grabbing  a  towel. b.\  I 
"What  are  you  doing  here?" 

"I'm  here  for  some  meetings.-  [ 
Thought  I'd  stop  by  to  see  whenrao. 
you're  planning  to  go  back  to  Yale."  '^ 

For  a  moment  I  blinked.  Then  AveM]0; 
reached  into  his  pocket  and  said,  "I've^ 
got  a  prepaid  ticket  for  you,  right  here."  \^ 

One  day  my  stepmother,!.^ < 
Chiquita,  called  me  atii^ 
school  to  say  that  Hol-11  ^ 
lywood  was  making  a% 
film  about  my  father's  yfy 
life.  We'd  both  get  somet^- 
dough  out  of  it,  which.1%1. 
alleviated  any  qualms  I  may  have  had.1  \\ 
Three  of  Dad's  best  Hollywood  friends—  n 
Cary  Grant,  Van  Johnson,  and  Tyrone  % 
Power   had  wanted  to  play  the  title  role.  \it  ■ 
The  choice  of  Power,  with  his  dark  looks  []ar 
and  boyish  charm,  seemed  perfect.    5 
Kim  Novak  as  my  mother  seemed  a^jtrou 
classic  case  of  miscasting.  How  could  De[ 
a  Hollywood  bimbo  with  midwestern,  L, 
working-class  roots  play  Marjorie  Oel-    [, 
richs  of  Newport  and  New  York  soci-  •> 


ty?  But  I  had  just  seen 
Jovak  as  the  small-town 
eauty  in  Picnic.  As  she 
id  for  every  other  horny 
unerican  adolescent  male 
f  the  50s,  this  soft,  sphinx- 
ike  blonde  with  the  flat, 
usky  voice  had  become 
le  girl  of  my  wet  dreams. 

Hearing  that  she  was 
ilming  in  Central  Park 
>ne  weekend,  I  asked  a 
ouple  of  Yale  buddies  if 
hey'd  like  to  meet  her. 
f  I'd  wanted  to,  I  could  have  gotten 
lie  whole  university  on  that  train  to 
jrand  Central. 

They  were  shooting  just  inside  the 
ark  off  Fifth  Avenue.  Once  I  told 
hie  guard  who  I  was,  we  were  waved 
\nio  the  set.  We  spotted  her  immedi- 
tely.  Dressed  in  a  white  silk  robe, 
Cim  Novak  was  sitting  in  a  folding 
hair  while  an  army  of  makeup  peo- 
le  fussed  over  her  cheekbones.  I 
rept  up  behind  her,  kissed  her  light- 
er on  the  ear,  and  said,  "Hi,  Mom." 

She  let  out  a  little  shriek.  Then  she 
urned  and  threw  me  a  catlike  smile. 
You're  not  little  Peter,  are  you?"  she 
aid  in  a  low,  thrilling  voice. 

I  grinned. 
|  That  night,  Kim  took  us  all  out  to 
linner.  Afterward,  we  took  her  to  Jim- 
tay  Ryan's  club  on  52nd  Street.  Every 
lead  turned  when  we  walked  in. 

Kim  wanted  to  hear  everything  I 
:ould  tell  her  about  my  parents,  which 
vasn't  very  much.  She  gave  me  her 
)hone  number,  and  a  couple  of  week- 
nds  later  I  called  and  offered  to  in- 
roduce  her  to  Marie  Harriman. 

I  was  staying  at  the  Harriman  house 
»n  81st  Street,  and  after  helping  Kim 
>ut  of  her  mink,  I  took  her  upstairs. 

Kim's  eyes  got  big  at  the  sight  of 
(he  fabulous  paintings  and  the  figure 
j)f  Ma,  regal  behind  her  dark  glasses, 
jloing  her  crossword  puzzle  under  the 
kuge  Derain  portrait  of  herself. 

Ma  had  met  too  many  movie  stars 
m  her  time  to  be  impressed.  She 
Ihook  Kim's  awkwardly  outstretched 
pnd.  "So  nice  to  meet  you,  Mrs. 
Harriman,"  said  the  great  star. 
I  Soon  they  were  chatting  away.  Ma 
[rotted  out  her  favorite  stories  about 
ier  best  friend.  Kim  took  it  in  ea- 
gerly. I  sat  there,  all  ears. 

In  her  gentle  purr,  Kim  asked  whether 
ny  mother  had  been  as  beautiful  as 


she  appeared  in  the  Beaton  photographs. 

"Oh,  she  was  even  more  beautiful!" 
replied  Ma.  Glancing  at  Kim,  whose 
skirt  was  above  the  knees,  showing 
off  two  of  her  best  assets,  Ma  added, 
"Except  for  the  legs,  which  she  al- 
ways kept  covered.  She  was  one  of 
the  first  women  to  wear  slacks." 

Kim  had  invited  me  to  a  Broadway 
play,  the  name  of  which  I  have  for- 
gotten. When  we  got  up  to  say  good- 
bye, she  put  out  her  hand.  "Oh,  Mrs. 
Harriman,"  she  said,  "it's  been  so 
nice  visiting  with  you.  I  hope  we  can 
visit  again  sometime." 

Ma  threw  me  a  look  over  her  dark 
glasses. 

I  remember  nothing  about  the  play, 
but  I  remember  the  rest  of  the  night, 
during  which  I  got  as  close  to  Oedipal 
ecstasy  as  I'll  ever  know.  When  I  stum- 
bled back  to  81st  Street  at  six  in  the 
morning,  I  discovered  a  note  on  my  pil- 
low. It  was  from  Ma,  and  it  said,  "Hope 
you  had  a  real  nice  visit,  honey." 

The  trust  fund  my  father 
left  me  had  provided  just 
enough  to  educate  me, 
keep  me  clothed,  and  of- 
fer a  small  allowance. 
But  I  had  no  means  of 
real  support  and  no  di- 
rection. After  I  got  out  of  Yale  and 
spent  two  years  in  the  army,  the  old 
places  were  still  there— Ma  and  Ave's, 
Chiquita's— and  I  went  running  back 
to  them.  One  day,  however,  Ma  took 
me  to  Toots  Shor's  for  lunch.  "Sweet- 
heart." she  said,  "I  don't  want  to  in- 
terrupt all  the  fun  you're  having,  but 
I  think  it's  about  time  you  got  your 
ass  in  gear.  You  better  start  thinking 
about  what  you're  going  to  do  with 
your  life." 

I  nodded  sorrowfully. 

Of  course,  doors  were  open  to  me 


In  each 

other  s  arms 

on  the 

couch  were 

Pam  Hayward 

and  Ave, 
unbuttoned. 


169 


because  of  my  name  and  connections.  One 
call  to  Bobby  Brenner  at  MCA,  the  big  tal- 
ent agency,  and  it  wasn't  long  before  I  had 
a  career,  at  least  on  paper.  Not  that  there 
was  anything  else  on  the  horizon.  Thanks 
to  Hotchkiss,  Yale,  and  the  Sorbonne.  I 
had  acquired  a  healthy  degree  of  intellectu- 
al curiosity.  But  that  didn't  get  you  a  job. 
Sometimes  I  dreamed  about  returning  to 
Paris  and  leading  the  Left  Bank  life.  But 
deep  down  I  knew  I  needed  more  security. 
Other  times  I  fantasized  about  becom- 
ing a  serious  composer.  Ma  had  always 
tried  to  steer  me  in  that  direction.  "For 
Chrissake,"  she'd  say,  "you've  been  edu- 
cated for  it.  Why  don't  you  go  to  Juil- 
liard  and  get  serious?"  But  every  time  I 
thought  about  sitting  down  and  doing  it. 
I'd  let  something  distract  me. 


M: 


any  people  have  asked  me  whether  I 
would  have  become  a  bandleader  if 
my  father  had  remained  alive.  The  an- 
swer is  "Probably  not."  I'm  sure  that  if 
my  father  had  been  thriving  in  1960  I'd 
have  thought  more  than  twice  about  fol- 
lowing in  his  footsteps.  But  he  wasn't 
around.  As  I  thought  about  what  I  could 
do  with  myself  when  I  was  23,  I  realized 
that  the  only  thing  I  had  to  hang  my  hat 
on  was  his  legacy.  Not  that  I  wanted  to 
be  Eddy  Duchin  all  over  again.  That  was 
impossible.  I  simply  wanted  to  use  what- 
ever talent  and  personality  I  had  of  my 
own  and  make  the  most  of  them. 

It  was  my  stepmother.  Chiquita,  who 
called  her  friend  Cesar  Balsa,  the  owner  of 
the  St.  Regis  Hotel,  in  the  spring  of  1962 
and  reminded  him  of  a  night  he'd  heard 
me  play  piano  when  Chiquita  and  I  were 
in  Mexico  City.  And  she  came  with  me 
when  I  made  my  pitch  to  Cesar  at  the  St. 
Regis.  As  coached  by  Bobby  Brenner.  I 
said,  "You  must  really  be  tired  of  dealing 
with  the  managers  of  all  those  different 
singers  you  have  down  in  the  Maisonette. 
I've  got  a  better  idea.  Why  don't  you  hire 
me  and  a  band  for  the  season?  You  won't 
have  any  managers  to  deal  with.  I'll  bring 
in  all  my  friends,  and  they'll  bring  in  all 
their  friends."  He  went  for  it— hook,  line, 
and  Social  Register. 

On  May  31,  1962,  I  signed  a  contract  to 
play  with  my  own  band  at  the  Maisonette. 
The  fringe  benefits  were  spectacular.  I  would 
be  given  my  own  suite  in  the  hotel— free. 
Office  space  in  an  adjacent  building— free. 
Dinners  at  the  Maisonette,  all  the  drinks  I 
wanted,  and  any  bottle  of  wine  from  one 
of  New  York's  great  cellars— free.  And 
there  would  be  no  cover  charge  for  any  of 
my  friends  who  happened  to  drop  in. 

The  only  thing  missing  wun  a  band.  Bob- 
by was  friendly  with  Otto  Schmidt,  a  sax 


player  and  clarinetist  in  Ted  Straeter's  or- 
chestra at  the  Persian  Room  in  the  Plaza. 
Otto,  a  classy,  white-haired  veteran,  wasn't 
exactly  hungry.  But  Straeter  was  about  to 
retire,  and  he  generously  suggested  that 
Otto  help  me  get  started.  In  short  order, 
Otto  rounded  up  musicians  for  the  fall,  five 
of  whom  went  with  me  for  a  warm-up  gig 
that  summer.  Then,  on  September  25, 
1962,  I  opened  at  the  Maisonette,  with  Chi- 
quita and  Ma  and  Ave  in  the  audience. 
Within  a  few  weeks,  the  club  was  mine— 
my  living  room,  my  rumpus  room,  my  din- 
ing room,  my  stage.  The  critics  loved  us. 
The  morning  after  my  debut,  Tlie  New 
York  Times'?,  reviewer,  Milton  Esterow,  set 
the  tone:  'it  seemed  as  if  they  could  have 
danced  all  night.  .  .  .  Another  Duchin  is 
back  in  town."  Everybody  came  in,  from 
mafiosi  to  the  Duchess  of  Windsor. 

The  Maisonette  staff  became  my  fami- 
ly. Most  of  them  had  been  hired  by 
Vincent  Astor,  who  had  owned  the  hotel 
before  Cesar.  Vincent  had  put  a  premium 
on  old-world  manners— as  did  all  the  top 
hotels  in  New  York  in  those  days— and 
the  place  still  had  the  feeling  of  a  Euro- 
pean grand  hotel. 

There  was  Rudy,  the  impeccable, 
Austrian-accented  maitre  d",  who  glided 
through  the  room  like  a  swan.  Not  since 
Chissie  had  anyone  looked  after  my  wel- 
fare better  than  Rudy.  The  royal  "we"  was 
his  only  pronoun,  and  before  my  dinner 
break  he'd  come  over  to  the  piano  and  say, 
"Why  don't  we  have  the  striped  bass  with 
the  beurre  hhme  tonight?  It's  very  fresh. 
And  what  are  we  going  to  drink?  I  think 
we'll  enjoy  the  '53  Montrachet."  If  two 
girls  I  was  taking  out  arrived  unexpected- 
ly, Rudy  would  make  sure  to  seat  them  as 
far  apart  as  possible,  tipping  me  off  with 
a  wink  and  a  nod.  For  these  and  count- 
less other  favors,  I  called  him  Mother. 

Rudy  was  a  walking  Who's  Who  of 
names,  faces,  and  pedigrees.  He  conferred 
titles  on  all  the  notables.  "Peter,"  he'd  say, 
"the  Governor  is  coming  in  tonight":  he 
meant  Ave.  Or  "The  Producer"— David 
Merrick— "is  coming.  I'm  sure  he'd  appre- 
ciate hearing  something  from  one  of  his 
shows."  Or  "The  Artist"— Salvador  Dali— 
"is  in  booth  number  12.  He'd  like  you  to 
come  over  and  say  hello." 

Dali,  who  lived  in  a  suite  upstairs  with 
his  wife.  Gala,  was  a  regular.  One  night,  he 
handed  me  a  manuscript.  "Peter,"  he  said, 
in  French,  "would  you  be  kind  enough  to 
translate  into  English  a  little  poem  I  have 
written?"  I  waited  until  I  got  back  to  my 
suite  to  look  at  it.  A  dreadful  exercise  in 
pseudo-pornography  about  a  king  greatly 
given  to  self -abuse,  it  was  called  "Le  Grand 


Masturbateur."  I  never  managed  to  put  it  I 
into  English  or  any  other  language,  and  the! 
subject  never  came  up  between  us  again     L 

My  last  sighting  of  Dali  was  a  couple  \ 
of  years  later,  when  I  was  hired  by  Re-  L 
bekah  Harkness,  the  dance  patroness,  to  [. 
play  for  her  daughter's  wedding  in  Watch  u 
Hill,  Rhode  Island.  In  one  of  the  Surreal-  L 
ist  tableaux  vivants  that  had  been  set  upiL 
for  the  guests'  amusement,  I  spotted  "the  L 
Artist"  squirting  shaving  cream  on  a.u, 
group  of  naked  models  from  a  can  of<L 
Barbasol.  I  waved  at  him,  but  he  was  sotL 
absorbed  in  what  he  was  doing  that  heiL 
didn't  even  wink. 

The  woman  I  was  seeing  most  frequent- 
ly during  those  years  at  the  Maisonette  | 
was  Cheray  Zauderer,  a  tall  and  graceful  !  | 
blonde  who  became  something  of  a  regu-iL 
lar  at  the  club,  just  as  my  mother  had  beenr.i 
when  my  dad  played  the  old  Central  Parkvt, 
Casino  30  years  before.  Cheray  and  I  were  il , 
married  in  1964  in  a  civil  ceremony  at  hen  jj, 
parents'  apartment  on  Park  Avenue.  Thei ,. 
night  before  the  wedding.  Ma  and  Ave  it, 
gave  the  bridal  dinner  at  81st  Street.  With  j 
a  great  flourish,  Ave  produced  cases  of  anx 
ancient  Premier  Cru  claret  that  had  been-v 
brought  from  the  cellars  at  Arden.  The  la-tL 
bels  were  fabulous,  the  color  muddy,  the  a., 
taste  beyond  vinegar.  But  Ave  was  soaL 
proud  of  having  "driven  it  downstate,"  asiL 
he  put  it,  that  not  even  Ma  had  the  heartU 
to  tell  him  the  wine  was  undrinkable. 

Cheray's  father  had  come  to  me  aboutik,. 
the  music  for  the  reception.  I'm  sure  hetj, 
thought  I  was  going  to  suggest  my  band.L 
Egged  on  by  Cheray,  I'd  said,  "Whatii(, 
about  Count  Basie?" 

Six  hundred  people  came  to  the  recep-vk 
tion  at  the  St.  Regis  Roof,  and  Basie  never  tt, 
sounded  better.  The  last  guests  left  at  three  c:,. 
in  the  morning,  and  I  can  honestly  say  it% 
was  the  best  party  I  never  played  for. 

It  was  Otto  who  called  with  the  news:-,,. 
"It's  bad,  Peter,"  he  said  over  the  phone. •.:>,, 
"Marie  died  last  night  of  a  heart  attack." 

It  was  September  26,  1970.  The  next 
day  Cheray  and  I  flew  to  Washington,  u,. 
Ave  was  beside  himself.  Marie  had  died  atd,  ( 
67.  He  was  79  and  had  never  expected  too^ 
outlive  her.  Immediately  he  wanted  to  w 
show  us  her  body.  In  his  Checker  townuL 
car  with  its  awful  springs,  we  bounced  up  \ , 
Massachusetts  Avenue  to  Joseph  Gawlor's  ^. 
funeral  home.  As  we  entered  the  dirauL 
room  where  Ma  was  laid  out  in  an  open  [0| 
coffin.  I  couldn't  bear  to  look.  Ave,  clutch-  L 
ing  my  arm  heavily,  said,  "Isn't  she  beau- '-if, 
tiful!  Isn't  she  beautiful!" 

The  sense  of  loss  I  felt  was  physical,  as  L 
though  I  were  suddenly  without  a  vital  or-- 
gan.  Ma  had  been  my  best  sounding  board,  L 


170 


VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


■y  late-night  drinking  buddy,  my  bulwark. 
By  conscience.  Definitely  my  last  resort, 
lorn  the  beginning  she'd  watched  over  me. 
J  After  the  thousand  thank-you  notes  had 
j-en  written  and  the  parade  of  condo- 
Ince  callers  was  over,  Ave  sank  into  a 
rep  depression.  That  winter,  he  went 
|)wn  to  Hobe  Sound  and  rarely  went 
lit.  When  Cheray  and  I  telephoned  to 
jje  how  he  was  doing,  he  plaintively 
Iked  whether  we  might  come  down  for 
[visit.  "How  about  our  spending  a  few 
pnths  after  New  Year's?"  I  suggested, 
liere  was  a  long  pause— possibly  to  turn 
I)  his  hearing  aid.  Then:  "Fine,  Petey. 
tame  along."  It  was  Ave's  way  of  saying, 
I'd  love  it." 

I  In  January,  Cheray  and  I  flew  down 
nth  the  kids,  the  nurse,  and 
lalcolm  X,  our  black  Lab,  to 
fobe  Sound.  Ave  was  in  worse 
aape  than  we'd  imagined.  He 
as  so  listless  that  he  could 
krely  watch  the  evening  news. 
e  talked  incessantly  about  Ma- 
p,  reminiscing  about  the  trips 
fey'd  taken  together  and  the 
fisecracks  of  hers  that  had  made 
jm  laugh— more  now  than  when 
(e'd  said  them.  He  loved  telling 

Eout  the  time  in  Teheran  when 
'd  been  sent  by  Truman  to  set- 
the  crisis  over  Mosaddeq's 
•izure  of  the  British  oil  conces- 
ons.  One  evening  when  Ave 
as  off  somewhere  else,  Ma  had 
lid  a  call  on  the  premier.  Along 
ith  other  dignitaries,  she  was 
d  into  his  private  chambers, 
here,  the  father  of  modern  Iran 
y  in  bed,  seemingly  indisposed, 
inally,  everyone  was  dismissed  except 
la.  Diplomatically,  she  inquired  about  the 
remier's  health,  whereupon  he  leapt  out 
I  bed  on  his  birdlike  legs  and  lunged  at 
;r.  This  set  off  a  mad  chase  through  the 
srsian  gardens,  Mosaddeq  in  his  red  silk 
ijamas,  Ma  clicking  along  in  her  high 
;els.  The  detail  Ave  loved  best  was  the 
yamas. 

One  morning  at  breakfast,  he  said, 
3ete,  I've  been  thinking.  I  can  cut  off  an 
;re  down  by  the  grapefruit  grove  with- 
jt  hurting  the  property.  I'd  love  to  give 

to  you  and  Cheray  if  you'd  consider 
iilding  a  small  house  on  it.  It's  right  on 
e  ocean.  Something  you  and  the  kids 
>uld  use  from  time  to  time.  You  know, 
ere  will  soon  be  no  beachfront  property 
ft  on  the  Atlantic  coast." 

"Great,"  I  said,  "we'd  love  it.  But  are 
>u  sure?" 

"Of  course  I  am,"  he  said.  "Let's  go 
alk  it." 


When  Ave  suggested  that  we  call  an  ar- 
chitect, I  knew  he  was  serious.  He  took 
great  pleasure  going  over  the  sk-tches  for 
the  modest  bungalow  we  envisioned,  offer- 
ing many  suggestions.  Thinking  I  might  ac- 
tually own  a  piece  of  this  childhood  place, 
I  felt  a  wonderful  sense  of  roots.  The  fact 
that  I  would  also  be  providing  Ave  compa- 
ny—as well  as  a  built-in  croquet  partner- 
in  his  old  age  made  it  even  better. 

Among  the  first  new  friends  Cheray 
and  I  had  made  after  we  were  mar- 
ried and  moved  to  a  house  in  Westches- 
ter was  a  glamorous  couple,  Leland  and 
Pamela  Hayward,  who  lived  at  Haywire, 
their  estate  in  nearby  Yorktown  Heights. 
I  had  first  met  Pamela  when  she  was 


Ave  left  virtually 

his  entire 
fortune  to  Pamela. 

Shed  gotten 
it  all  for  herself— 
even  his  bones. 


still  Pamela  Digby  Churchill,  the  ex-wife 
of  Winston  Churchill's  dissolute  son, 
Randolph.  At  the  time,  I  was  too  naive 
to  spot  her  as  anything  other  than  an  at- 
tractive, upper-class  Englishwoman  with 
a  fancy  apartment  in  Paris,  to  which  I'd 
been  taken  a  couple  of  times  by  journal- 
ist friends  from  Paris  Match.  I  was  19, 
living  on  the  barge,  and  more  impressed 
to  have  spotted  Jean -Paul  Sartre  and  Si- 
mone  de  Beauvoir  at  the  Deux  Magots 
than  I  was  to  be  meeting  this  rather 
plump,  red-haired,  milky-skinned  wom- 
an, even  though  she'd  been  the  notori- 
ous mistress  of  Aly  Khan  and  Gianni 
Agnelli  and  was  then  "being  kept"  by 
the  French  banker  Elie  de  Rothschild. 
Twelve  years  later,  she  reappeared  as  my 
neighbor. 

An  extraordinary  ability  to  focus  on 
the  object  (or  objects)  of  her  desire— not 
beauty,  wit,  imagination,  or  style-  is  the 
secret  of  the  woman  who  has  been  called 


"the  courtesan  of  the  century."  Pam  has 
always  known  exactly  what  she  wanted. 
And,  if  she  doesn't  get  it,  how  to  move 
on.  Having  failed  to  marry  the  European 
potentates  on  whom  she  set  her  sights, 
she  arrived  on  the  American  scene  by 
breaking  up  the  marriage  of  one  of  the 
princes  of  show  business,  the  agent  and 
producer  Leland  Hayward.  whose  wife. 
Slim,  was  not  exactly  a  pushover. 

Pamela  couldn't  have  been  nicer  to 
Cheray  and  me  at  first.  When  she  heard 
we  were  looking  for  property  to  buy  near 
Bedford,  she  offered  to  help  us.  Two  or 
three  times  she  drove  us  around  herself. 
She  seemed  the  perfect  wife  for  Leland.  I 
had  met  him  casually  in  New  York,  and 
though   he   hadn't   had   a   hit   since   his 
smash  musicals  Gypsy  and  The 
Sound  of  Music  (and,   before 
that,  South  Pacific),  his  boyish 
charm,    enthusiasm,    and    ner- 
vous energy  were  still  immense- 
ly attractive.  He  seemed  besot- 
ted by  Pam,  especially  after  he 
suffered  a  mild  stroke  in  1970. 
Ave  had  been  a  widower  for 
six  months  when  Leland  died 
of  a  more  massive  stroke  in 
March  1971.  It  wasn't  long  be- 
fore Pam  heard  about  an  up- 
coming dinner  in  Washington 
being  given  by  Kay  Graham  at 
which  Ave,  Pam's  old  wartime 
lover,   would   be  present.   Tru- 
man  Capote   claimed  that  he 
persuaded  her  to  call  Kay  and 
get    herself  invited.    If  so,    it 
couldn't  have  taken  much  per- 
suading. According  to  several 
of  the  guests,  Pam  directed  her 
focus   almost   exclusively   at   Ave,   even 
though  they  were  seated  back-to-back— 
positions  she  had  arranged  beforehand  in 
order  to  heighten  the  allure. 

At  Ave's  suggestion,  Cheray  and  I 
and  the  kids  had  been  spending  that 
summer  at  the  Harriman  house  in  Sands 
Point.  Ave  was  in  Washington  most  of 
the  week,  and  he'd  shuttle  up  on  week- 
ends. Casually  he  mentioned  having 
"run  into"  Pamela  at  Kay's— too  casual- 
ly, we  thought.  The  moment  he'd  left  for 
Washington  on  the  following  Monday 
morning,  the  phone  rang.  It  was  Pam. 
She  wanted  us  to  know  how  wonderful  it 
had  been  seeing  Ave  again.  And  he  had 
looked  so  wonderful.  Twenty-four  hours 
later,  she  called  again.  This  time  she 
said.  Wouldn't  it  be  fun  if  she  came  by 
some  weekend  and  saw  all  of  us? 

Why  not?  Having  Pamela  as  a  house- 
guest  would  undoubtedly  give  Ave  a  lift.  I 
called  him  to  see  if  it  would  be  all  right. 


NITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


171 


Durliin 


I*d  hardly  opened  my  mouth  when  he 
said,  "Great  idea!" 

A  few  days  later,  Pam  pulled  up  in  her 
beige  Cadillac.  Out  she  jumped,  looking 
glamorous  and  indomitable  in  her  En- 
glish country  best.  Ave,  having  just 
played  croquet,  shambled  over  in  his 
ancient  seersucker  shorts  and  shabby 
Brooks  Brothers  sweater.  Their  embrace 
was  correct,  friendly  but  not  too  friendly. 
Ave  ushered  her  to  a  guest  room  at  the 
farthest  point  from  his  bedroom,  just 
down  the  hall  from  our  quarters.  Ab- 
solutely correct.  I  followed,  carrying  two 
very  heavy  bags. 

The  next  night,  Cheray  and  I  couldn't 
join  them  for  dinner,  since  I  had  a  job  to 
play  and  Cheray  had  a  long-standing  invi- 
tation elsewhere. 

"Good  night,  children,"  said  Pam  and 
Ave  as  we  exited,  leaving  the  two  of  them 
alone. 

It  was  1:30  when  I  got  back.  The 
house  was  dark  as  I  went  out  on  the 
screened  porch  to  pour  myself  a  night- 
cap. When  I  switched  on  the  light  over 
the  bar,  I  heard  a  shriek.  There,  in  each 
other's  arms  on  the  couch,  were  Pam  and 
Ave,  unbuttoned. 

"Jesus  wept!"  Ave  bellowed. 

The  last  thing  I  saw  before  turning  off 
the  light  was  Pam  pulling  her  blouse  to- 
gether. 

"Sorry,"  I  mumbled,  and  fled. 

I  ran  to  wake  Cheray.  I'd  gotten  as  far 
as  "You'll  never  believe"  when  we  heard 
Pamela  tromping  very  loudly  down  the 
hallway.  Passing  our  room,  she  called  out 
in  her  best  nannylike  voice,  "Good  night, 
children!"  With  a  decisive  click,  she  closed 
her  door. 

We  were  almost  asleep— both  of  us  de- 
lighted at  Ave's  rejuvenation— when  we 
heard  a  loud  crash  in  Pam's  room.  I  got 
up,  ran  down  the  corridor,  and  knocked 
softly  on  her  door.  "Is  everything  all 
right?" 

"Just  fine,"  cooed  Pam.  "Absolutely 
fine.  No  problem.  The  lamp  fell  over." 

I  went  back  to  bed. 

The  next  morning  there  was  a  knock 
on  our  door.  In  came  Pam.  radiant  in  her 
pink  negligee.  Seating  herself  at  the  foot 
of  the  bed,  she  said  in  a  conspiratorial 
half -whisper,  "Children,  you'll  never  guess 
what  happened!  Remember  that  ghastly 
sound  around  2:30  in  the  morning'.'" 

"The  lamp'.'" 

"It  wasn't  the  lamp.  It  was  A  veil.  He 
fell  through  the  window." 

"He  what?" 


n: 


"He  walked  all  the  way  around  the 
outside  of  the  house  in  his  slippers  and 
pajamas.  But  the  poor  darling  forgot 
about  the  screen." 

Scarcely  a  month  later,  on  September 
27.  1971,  Pam  and  Ave  were  married 
very  quietly  in  New  York. 

It  was  a  year  and  a  day  after  Ma's 
death,  six  months  after  Leland's.  Ave  was 
nearly  80.  Pam,  at  51,  was  28  years  young- 
er. The  ceremony  was  held  at  St.  Thomas 
More's  Church,  Pam  having  converted  to 
Catholicism  some  years  earlier  in  her  at- 
tempt to  marry  Gianni  Agnelli. 

An  hour  after  the  ceremony,  they  an- 
nounced the  news  to  more  than  a  hundred 
friends  and  a  few  relatives  at  the  Harri- 
man  house  on  81st  Street.  Without  a  word 
of  explanation  from  Ave,  Cheray  and  I 
had  not  been  invited  to  the  wedding— only 
a  handful  of  people  had,  as  witnesses.  We 
felt  a  little  uncomfortable  as  we  climbed 
the  red-carpeted  stairs  to  the  living  room. 
It  was  spooky.  There  was  Pam,  wreathed  in 
smiles,  welcoming  everybody.  There  was  Ave 
with  his  arm  around  her.  But  it  was  still 
Ma's  room.  Her  ghost  was  everywhere. 

Pam's  timing  was  brilliant.  Ever  so  sub- 
tly, she  changed  everything.  Bit  by  bit,  she 
redid  the  houses,  sprucing  up  the  best  of 
Ma's  comfortably  lived-in  pieces,  jettison- 
ing the  things  she  didn't  want  around.  One 
day  she  called  Cheray  and  asked  if  we'd 
like  to  have  the  Chinese  vitrine  that  had 
stood  in  the  foyer  at  81st  Street,  as  well  as 
the  Steinway  piano  my  father  had  picked 
out  for  Marie  and  Ave  years  before. 

When  Ma  was  alive,  the  Georgetown 
house  was  a  place  where  everybody  felt 
instantly  at  home.  After  Pamela  moved 
in,  you  expected  the  Architectural  Digest 
photographer  to  arrive  at  any  moment. 
Pam  put  the  decorator  Billy  Baldwin  in 
charge  of  creating  the  stage  set  on  which 
she  would  make  her  ascension  in  the 
Washington  power  scene. 

One  morning  at  breakfast  after  I'd  spent 
the  night  there,  I  asked  Ave  how  much  Pam 
was  doing  to  the  place.  "I  don't  know,"  he 
said,  glancing  up  from  the  Times.  "But 
there's  this  little  man  who  pops  up  now 
and  then  and  talks  to  me  in  this  sort  of  En- 
glish accent.  He  seems  to  be  a  decorator." 

"He  sure  is."  I  said. 

"Who  is  he?" 

"You'll  know  when  you  see  the  bills." 

Ave  glowered  and  went  back  to  his 
Times. 

Pam  tarted  up  Hobe  Sound  as  well.  So 
I  wasn't  at  all  prepared  for  what  happened 
when  I  found  myself  seated  next  to  Pam  at 
the  Al  Smith  Dinner  in  New  York  City,  the 
Democratic  Party's  annual  fund-raiser  in 


the  Grand  Ballroom  at  the  Waldorf.  Cas 
ally,  as  though  she  were  remarking  abo 
the  weather,  Pam  mentioned  that  she  ai 
Ave  had  put  Hobe  Sound  on  the  market. 

Knowing  how  much  Ave  loved  tl 
place,  I  was  surprised. 

"Yes,"  she  went  on.  "We  think  we'' 
found  a  very  good  buyer  for  it.  And  I'' 
found  an  absolutely  super  place  in  Ba 
bados." 

Ave  looking  for  shells  on  a  Caribbec 
beach?  I  couldn't  see  it. 

"Pam,"  I  said,  "I  hope  you're  not  inclu 
ing  that  acre  of  land  as  part  of  the  deal. 

"What  acre?"  she  asked  sharply. 

"The  one  Ave  promised  Cheray  ar 
me.  You  know,  down  by  the  grapefru 
grove." 

Her  smile  froze.  "Is  it  in  writing?" 

In  the  moment  it  took  to  answer  "0 
course  not,"  I  realized  there  was  nothir 
more  I  could  say.  I  glanced  over  at  Av 
who  occupied  one  of  the  central  seats  o 
the  speakers'  dais.  If  I  had  never  bee: 
able  to  ask  him  for  anything  before,  I  ce 
tainly  wouldn't  be  able  to  now. 

One  day  without  warning,  a  large  box  ai 
rived  at  our  door,  courtesy  of  U.P.S.  Insic 
was  every  framed  picture  of  me  with  Ml 
and/or  Ave.  or  me  with  Cheray  and  th 
kids  and  Ma  and/or  Ave,  that  had  occupie 
a  place  in  the  Harriman  houses.  Her  secnri 
tary  had  included  a  brief  explanatory  notit 

From  then  on,  every  time  I  called  Av\ 
to  ask  how  he  was  doing,  or  perhaps  t 
arrange  to  meet  for  lunch,  I  was  never  abl> 
to  speak  with  him  alone.  After  we'd  sai 
hello,  Pam  would  get  on  the  line  and  foo 
note  the  conversation.  When  Ave  and  I  dil. 
meet  for  lunch,  it  was  never  just  the  two  o 
us.  Pam,  as  I  later  learned  from  a  forme, 
secretary  of  hers,  would  have  change, 
whatever  appointment  she  had  in  order  h. 
be  there.  It  wasn't  out  of  fondness  for  me 
By  the  time  the  70s  had  turned  into  the  80 
and  Pam  had  begun  laying  the  grounc 
work  for  her  next  adventure,  as  fund-raise 
par  excellence  for  the  Democratic  Party, 
was  seeing  very  little  of  Ave. 

The  house  in  Hobe  Sound  was  sold 
along  with  my  acre.  As  Ave  became  hr 
creasingly  deaf— and,  before  long,  increas 
ingly  blind— he  was  transported  into  nev 
domains  that  were  entirely  of  Pamela' 
creation,  arriving  on  their  private  jet 
Weekends  they  spent  an  hour's  drive  fron 
Washington  at  Willow  Oaks,  a  many-acn 
equestrian  property  near  Middleburg,  Vir 
ginia,  that  Pam  had  transformed  at  untok 
expense  into  a  showplace.  They  winterec 
in  Mango  Bay,  their  fairy-tale  hideaway  ii 
Barbados,  which  had  been  built  by  th* 
British  set  designer  Oliver  Messel  largel; 
out  of  coral.  Ave  had  clearly  moved  on. 

VANITY  FAIR/JUNE  199i 
■  I 


dan 

a.  & 

Wo 
Luc 

phone 

v..j  i 
8:  A 
a" 
o!>:. 
U 

bi 


won 


tob 


j  /"^  heray  and  I  broke  up  in  1981,  and  four 
o:  v>«  years  later  I  phoned  to  tell  Ave  of  my 
in  impending  marriage  to  Brooke  Hayward, 
the  daughter  of  Leland  Hayward  and  Mar- 
l|  garet  Sullavan.  Brooke  had  written  a  re- 
markable book,  Haywire,  about  the  col- 
\  lapse  of  her  brilliant  family.  With  devastat- 
ing understatement,  she'd  painted  her  step- 
I  mother  Pamela  as  the  formidable  adver- 
sary I  myself  had  come  to  see.  I  felt  a 
a|  great  kinship  with  Brooke— she  was  like  a 
long-lost  sister.  And  she  was  a  survivor. 

Luckily,  my  call  to  Ave  was  answered 
by  one  of  the  nurses,  who  got  him  on  the 
phone  alone.  I  trusted  that  he  wouldn't 
have  even  heard  of  Haywire,  in  which 
uji  Brooke  had  told  the  story  of  Pam's  role 
in  the  disappearance  of  a  valuable  string 
of  pearls  left  to  Brooke  by  her  mother. 

I  was  right.  "That's  wonderful!"  said 
Ave.  "When  can  I  meet  her?" 

We  were  talking  about  getting  together 
when  Ave  interrupted  me:  "Wait  a  min- 
ute. Pam's  just  walked  in.  Let  me  put  her 
on  the  phone." 

There  was  no  escape. 

"Peter,  what  good  news!"  said  the  beauti- 
fully practiced  voice.  "Who's  the  lucky  girl?" 

"Urn  .  .  .  Brooke  Hayward." 

Pam  didn't  skip  a  beat:  "That's  terrific! 
Where  is  Brooke?  I  want  to  call  and  con- 
gratulate her." 

So  Brooke  answered  her  phone,  and 
was  dumbfounded  to  hear  Pam  coo, 
"Broooooke.  I  want  to  tell  you  how 
thrilled  I  am  with  the  news.  We  just  love 
Peter  so.  The  Governor  is  so  excited.  I'm 
going  to  put  him  on  the  phone." 

No,  Brooke  thought.  I  don't  know  him. 
But  it  was  too  late.  Averell  got  on  the  line 
and  in  his  deaf  way  yelled,  "You're  mar- 
rying the  most  wonderful  man!"  Then 
Pam  got  back  on  and  said,  "We're  going 
to  give  you  a  wedding  present.  Five  hun- 
dred shares  of  Union  Pacific  stock!" 

"It  was  as  though  nothing  had  ever  hap- 
pened," Brooke  later  said. 

In  the  summer  of  1986,  Brooke  and  I 
were  in  Salzburg  for  the  music  festival 
when  Pam  called. 

"Peter,  I  don't  want  to  spoil  your  vaca- 
tion, but  Averell  has  taken  a  turn  for  the 
worse.  He  hasn't  very  long." 

"Should  I  come  back  now?" 

"No.  I'll  be  in  touch.  But  I'd  like  you 
to  be  a  pallbearer." 

I  said  I'd  be  honored. 

Several  days  later,  I  was  at  St.  Thomas's 
Episcopal  Church  in  New  York,  which  was 
packed  with  900  family  members,  state  and 
national  politicians,  diplomatic  colleagues, 
journalists,  and  society  figures.  The  other 
pallbearers  were  Ave's  five  grandsons  and 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


Pam's  son,  Winston  Churchill.  After  the 
service  we  piled  into  limos  for  the  proces- 
sion across  the  George  Washington  Bridge, 
up  the  Palisades  Parkway,  through  Harri- 
man  State  Park,  and  into  Arden.  We  passed 
squadrons  of  New  York  State  troopers, 
standing  in  formation  along  the  road,  salut- 
ing the  Governor's  hearse. 

There  were  about  60  of  us  standing 
around  the  open  grave,  next  to  Ma's 
stone  on  the  knoll  opposite  the  little 
chapel  of  St.  John,  as  the  Episcopal  bish- 
op of  New  York,  Paul  Moore  Jr.,  led  the 
prayers  and  gave  the  blessing. 

How  fitting,  I  thought,  that  Ave  should 
end  up  next  to  the  woman  who  had  been 
through  so  much  with  him  during  his 
long  career.  And  how  generous  of  Pam, 
who  looked  every  inch  the  Dignified  Wid- 
ow, to  put  him  there. 

Afterward,  we  all  went  up  to  the  big 
house  for  a  lunch,  and  standing  with 
Ave's  daughters,  Mary  and  Kathleen,  and 
looking  out  over  the  immense,  still- 
unspoiled  vista  of  woods  and  hills,  I  felt 
again  that  enchanted  safety  which  the 
forests  of  Arden  had  always  given  me. 

My  reverie  was  shattered  when  Mary 
remarked,  "You  know,  Ave's  not  going  to 
be  buried  next  to  Marie." 

"What  do  you  mean?" 


"I  mean  it  was  all  a  show.  Ave's  going 
to  be  buried  down  by  the  lake.  Pam  says 
it's  what  he  wanted." 

"But  that's  nonsense!  I'm  sure  Ave 
would  have  wanted  to  be  buried  in  the 
family  plot,  near  his  mother  and  next  to 
Marie.  The  lake  is  four  miles  away." 

"Well,  according  to  Pam,  a  couple  of 
years  ago  they  were  walking  by  the  lake 
one  evening  when  Averell  said  how  lovely 
it  would  be  to  be  buried  there,  just  the 
two  of  them  side  by  side." 

"That  sounds  like  Pam,  not  Ave.  I 
can't  imagine  him  coming  out  with  any- 
thing so  sentimental.  I  certainly  can't 
imagine  him  talking  about  death." 

"I  can't,  either,"  said  his  daughter. 

After  we  had  witnessed  the  blessing, 
Ave's  casket  was  returned  to  New  York, 
where  his  body  lay  for  two  months  on  ice 
while  the  lakeside  site  was  readied  to  re- 
ceive him.  When  reports  of  the  deception 
hit  the  papers,  more  than  one  distin- 
guished mourner  was  furious  at  having 
come  all  the  way  up  to  Arden  for  what 
turned  out  to  be  a  sham  burial. 

After  this,  I  wasn't  surprised  to  hear 
that  Ave  had  left  virtually  his  entire  for- 
tune, including  all  the  houses  and  art,  to 
his  widow.  She'd  gotten  it  all  for  herself— 
even  his  bones.  □ 


Fodors  r. 

refines 

your 
taste 
ior  the 
£ood  liie. 


Guiding 


ouna 


(Continued  from  page  156)  unusual  was 
to  see  her  so  conspicuously  seated  with 
women  of  the  highest  level  of  Western 
society.  Arab  women  tend  to  sit  to- 
gether in  the  last  row." 

Actually,  Mouna  was  neither  Muslim 
nor  Saudi  to  begin  with.  She  was 
born  Monique  Elias  Ayoub  to  Lebanese 
parents.  Her  mother  was  Greek  Ortho- 
dox, her  father  a  Maronite  Catholic.  She 
told  me  that  her  birth  date  was  February 
25,  1957,  that  her  parents  worked  in 
Kuwait— "My  father  was  an  entrepre- 
neur who  built  buildings,  and  my  mother 
was  a  nurse"— and  that,  like  her  brother 
and  two  sisters,  she  was  educated  at  a 
Catholic  boarding  school  in  Lebanon.  In 
1976,  she  said,  she  went  to  Paris  to  study 
at  the  Sorbonne,  and  to  make  ends  meet 
worked  nights  as  a  waitress  and  cashier 
at  a  restaurant  called  Le  Beirut  in  Passy, 
where  she  met  her  future  husband.  She 
denied  rumors  that  she  had  ever  been  a 
belly  dancer  and  that  Nasser  Al-Rashid, 
who  was  considerably  older,  hired  her  to 
work  as  an  au  pair  for  his  two  children 
by  his  former  wife,  an  American  he  had 
met  when  he  was  studying  engineering 
at  the  University  of  Texas  in  Austin. 

Mouna  and  Nasser  Al-Rashid  were 
married  in  London  in  1979,  after  she 
had  converted  to  Islam,  and  immediate- 
ly flew  to  Riyadh.  Saudi  Arabia  was  at 
the  height  of  the  oil  boom,  its  desert 
capital  was  a  vast  construction  site,  and 
Nasser  Al-Rashid  was  well  on  his  way 
to  making  an  enormous  fortune.  Ac- 
cording to  a  source  close  to  the  wife  of 
the  late  King  Khalid,  who  ruled  from 
1975  to  1982,  "Al-Rashid  got  his  start  by 
winning  the  contract  to  do  a  hotel  for 
King  Khalid  in  Taif,  the  summer  resort 
above  Mecca.  King  Khalid  liked  the 
building  so  much  that  he  gave  him  more 
government  construction  contracts." 

Mouna  refused  to  provide  any  infor- 
mation about  her  ex-husband  or  his 
business.  Almost  nothing  has  been  writ- 
ten about  him,  but  an  obscure  publisher 
in  Joplin.  Missouri,  has  issued  three 
books  Al-Rashid  wrote  with  Dr.  Lsber 
Shaheen:  King  Fahd  and  Saudi  Arabia's 
Great  Evolution  (1987).  Saudi  Arabia 
and  the  Gulf  War  ( 1992),  and  Saudi  (ra- 
bia:  All  You  Need  to  Know  ( 1995).  They 
paint  a  comprehensive,  detailed,  and 
thoroughly  positive  portrait  ol~  the  oil- 
rich  country  and  its  ruling  House  of 
Saud.  According  to  the  notes  on  the  au- 
thors,  Nasser   Al-Rashid  was   born   in 

174 


Medina  in  1939,  earned  a  B.S.  in  civil 
engineering  from  the  University  of 
Texas  in  1965,  and  a  Ph.D.  from  the 
same  school  in  1970.  Five  years  later  he 
established  Rashid  Engineering  in  Ri- 
yadh, and  by  the  late  70s  the  company 
had  annual  revenues  of  more  than  $2 
billion.  He  is  officially  "the  Engineering 
Consultant  to  King  Fahd,  the  Crown 
Prince  and  the  Royal  Court,"  and  sits 
on  the  boards  of  several  financial  institu- 
tions, including  Investcorp,  which  owns 
Saks  Fifth  Avenue.  He  is  also  said  to  be 
an  investor  in  Mouawad,  a  prestigious 
jewelry  business  with  stores  in  Paris, 
Geneva,  and  the  Middle  East. 

High-level  Arab  sources  say  that  he 
works  "hand  in  hand"  with  King  Fahd 
and  is  very  close  to  two  of  Fahd's  sons. 
Prince  Mohammed  and  Prince  Abdul 
Aziz.  He  is  also  known  in  the  Arab 
world  as  the  former  employer  of  Prime 
Minister  Rafic  Hariri  of  Lebanon,  who 
has  made  billions  of  his  own  in  the  con- 
struction business  in  Saudi  Arabia.  ("Ha- 
riri was  Rashid's  accountant,"  explains  a 
Lebanese  socialite.  "Rashid  recommend- 
ed him  to  King  Fahd.  And  now  he's 
even  richer  than  Rashid.") 

Nasser  Al-Rashid  installed  his  wife  in 
a  mansion  in  Riyadh  modeled  after  Mar- 
a-Lago— the  Marjorie  Merriweather  Post 
estate  in  Palm  Beach,  now  owned  by 
Donald  Trump  complete  with  a  tennis 
court  and  indoor  and  outdoor  pools. 
But,  she  told  me,  she  could  not  leave  the 
house  without  being  wrapped  in  a  black 
abaya  and  wearing  a  veil  over  her  entire 
face,  or  go  to  restaurants,  or  drive,  or 
leave  the  country  without  her  husband's 
permission.  The  house  has  separate  liv- 
ing rooms  for  men  and  women.  In  order 
for  her  to  jog,  her  husband  had  a  run- 
ning track  built  along  the  inside  of  the 
walls  that  enclose  the  five -acre  property. 

"The  Saudis  are  the  Puritans  of  the 
Moslem  world,"  writes  Sandra  Mackey 
in  Tlie  Saudis:  Inside  the  Desert  King- 
dom. "As  possessors  of  two  of  the  three 
holy  sites  of  Islam,  Mecca  and  Medina, 
the  Saudis  see  themselves  as  having  a 
certain  birthright  as  defenders  of  the 
faith.  .  .  .  Women  survive  by  totally  plac- 
ing themselves  in  the  hands  of  men.  .  .  . 
Restlessness  is  repressed.  Obedience  is 
security." 

On  the  other  hand,  as  Mouna's 
friend  Victoria  Oberfeld,  the  Mexican 
socialite,  points  out,  "Mouna  complains 
that  her  conservative  Muslim  husband 
didn't  want  her  to  wear  low-cut  dresses 
and  miniskirts.  Well,  my  conservative 
(  atl  olic  husband  doesn't  want  me  to 
wear  low-cut  dress,  s  and  miniskirts." 


Fashion  designer  Mary  McFadden, 
who  was  invited  to  Riyadh  by  Mouna  in 
1991  to  show  her  collection  privately  to 
a  small  group  of  women,  including  sev- 
eral royal  princesses  and  ambassadors' 
wives,  says,  "Nasser  is  a  man's  man.  I 
stayed  at  the  house  for  a  week,  and  he 
was  either  with  the  king  or  at  one  of  the 
men's  clubs.  He's  a  serious  and  devout 
Muslim.  And  like  most  men  in  that  part 
of  the  world,  he  is  not  interested  in 
women  whatsoever.  They  don't  think  we 
have  a  brain  in  our  head.  He  and  Mou- 
na basically  had  a  running  battle  of  the 
sexes,  and  the  issue  was  her  freedom." 

"You  really  needed  to  be  prepared  for 
that  life,  and  I  wasn't,"  Mouna  told  me. 
"For  six  months  there  was  not  a  meal  I 
ate  without  eating  my  tears  at  the  same 
time.  It  was  a  very  painful  experience. 
...  I  felt  that  I  was  a  burden  to  him 
rather  than  a  support.  I  couldn't  be  the 
ideal,  wonderful  Saudi  wife.  I  was  a  for- 
eigner and  young  and  different." 

A  year  after  the  Al-Rashids  were  mar- 
ried, the  first  of  their  five  children, 
a  son,  was  born.  Three  years  later  he 
was  diagnosed  with  acute  lymphocytic 
leukemia,  and  his  parents  flew  with  him 
to  the  world-renowned  St.  Jude  Chil- 
dren's Research  Hospital  in  Memphis, 
Tennessee.  Mouna  spent  a  large  part  of 
the  next  two  years  in  Memphis  while 
her  son  received  treatment,  and  then 
returned  there  with  him  every  three 
months  until  the  late  80s.  In  gratitude 
for  saving  their  son's  life,  the  Al-Rashids 
made  a  seven -figure  donation  to  the 
hospital,  and  he  built  the  King  Fahd 
Children's  Medical  Center  in  Riyadh 
with  $100  million  of  his  own  money. 

"The  beginning  of  my  'enlightenment' 
was  in  Memphis,"  said  Mouna.  She  not 
only  learned  English  there,  she  said,  but 
also  began  to  rebel.  "At  one  point  I  had 
blue-and-orange  hair.  I  did  fabulous  pic- 
tures in  Valentino  dresses  in  the  trophy 
room  at  Graceland."  In  1984,  while  in 
Los  Angeles  to  attend  a  benefit  for  St. 
Jude  hospital,  she  was  introduced  to 
Betsy  Bloomingdale,  who  became  her 
social  guide  on  the  West  Coast.  That 
same  year  in  Rome  she  met  another  in- 
valuable mentor,  Eleanor  Lambert,  who 
was  doing  public  relations  for  Luigi 
Sturchio,  the  Italian  designer  who 
worked  on  the  Lady  Moura. 

Nasser  Al-Rashid  already  owned  the 
late  Charles  Revson's  Ultima  II,  but  the 
new  boat  put  him  among  the  owners  of 
the  10  largest  yachts  in  the  world,  led  by 
King  Fahd's  482-foot  Abdul  Aziz  and 
Queen  Elizabeth  IPs  412-foot  Britannia. 

VANITY  FAIR  /JUNE  1996 


The  344-foot  Lady  Mourn  has  five  decks 
for  the  family  and  their  guests,  with  fur- 
nishings by  David,  Viscount  Linley,  and 
two  more  for  equipment  and  a  crew  of 
up  to  90.  "It's  the  most  elegant  and  so- 
phisticated large  yacht  in  the  world,"  says 
James  Gilbert,  editor  in  chief  of  Show- 
boats International  "It's  not  excessive. 
Everything  is  done  in  wonderful  taste." 

Launched  in  1991,  the  Lady  Mourn 
became  Mouna's  ticket  into  interna- 
tional society  as  she  cruised  the  Mediter- 
ranean and  entertained  guests  such  as 
Princess  Caroline  of  Monaco,  Ursula 
Andress,  Olivia  Newton -John,  Vanity 
Fair  contributing  editor  Wendy  Stark 
Morrissey,  Betsy  Bloomingdale,  Mary 
McFadden,  and  Ruth  Kennedy,  who 
works  for  David  Linley's  furniture  com- 
pany. By  her  husband's  de- 
cree, no  male  guests  were 
allowed  aboard;  he  himself 
spent  little  time  with  Mouna 
and  her  society  friends  on 
the  boat. 

"This  was  the  time  when 
I  started  to  be  daring  about 
going  out,"  she  said.  "I 
don't  know  what  it  was  that 
made  me  think:  I'm  not 
such  an  idiot  after  all.  May- 
be it  was  the  Gulf  War, 
when  I  went  and  lived  in 
Monaco  with  my  children 
and  he  stayed  in  Saudi  Ara- 
bia and  I  would  go  and  visit 
him  every  15  days.  I  did 
love  him  very,  very  much, 
but  in  the  last  six  or  seven 
years  we  rarely  saw  each  other.  I  was 
busy  with  the  kids,  and  he  was  busy 
with  business." 

She  recalled  a  turning  point  in  their 
marriage:  the  New  Year's  Eve  party 
given  by  Marvin  and  Barbara  Davis  in 
Aspen  to  see  in  1990.  "I  was  wearing 
these  beautiful  rubies  my  husband  had 
given  me,  and  I  was  acting  like  a  kid. 
He  disapproved  and  took  me  out  of 
this  party  and  everybody  saw  it.  Of 
course,  what  he  considers  not  behav- 
ing—having a  couple  of  drinks  and 
dancing  and  telling  some  jokes— is  per- 
fectly normal  in  your  society.  But  it  is 
not  in  ours.  I  felt  as  if  I'd  made  a  fool 
of  myself,  and  I  hated  this  ruby  neck- 
lace, and  I  sold  it." 

Although  she  had  been  ordering 
clothes  privately  from  the  French  cou- 
ture houses  since  the  beginning  of  her 
marriage,  in  1992  she  attended  a  fash- 
ion show  in  Paris  for  the  first  time. 
"It  was  Chanel,  and  I  was  seated  next 
to  Princess  Ira  von  Fiirstenberg,  and 


we  immediately  became  friends."  A 
few  months  later,  they  went  to  the 
Canyon  Ranch  in  Arizona  together. 
"After  two  days  I  said  to  Ira,  'This  is 
just  what  I  left— a  place  with  strict 
rules  in  the  middle  of  the  desert.'  So 
she  called  her  friend  Wendy  Stark 
Morrissey  in  Los  Angeles,  who  invited 
us  to  a  dinner  she  was  giving  for  Joan 
Collins.  I  said,  'How  can  I  go?  Aren't 
there  men?'  Ira  said,  'Of  course  there 
are  men.'  I  said,  'But  if  my  husband 
ever  finds  out  .  .  .  '  Finally  I  went, 
and  in  order  to  block  the  fear,  I  had 
to  play  this  fantastic  role.  Since  then  I 
always  feel  like  I'm  on  a  stage.  It 
works  both  ways.  Either  when  I  come 
to  America  I  am  me  and  in  Saudi 
Arabia  I'm  performing.  Or  when  I'm 


t  Mouna  is  like 
someone  who's  been 

let  out  of  jail. 
She  wants  to  learn, 

*)*) 

to  see,  to  go. 


in  Saudi  Arabia  I  am  me  and  in 
America  I'm  performing.  I  really 
don't  know.  I'm  just  two  completely 
different  people,  here  and  there." 


w: 


hen  the  Al-Rashids  were  finally 
officially  divorced  on  February  20 
of  this  year,  "it  was  amicable  and  peace- 
ful," she  said.  "I  didn't  ask  for  a  zillion 
dollars.  I  accepted  what  he  proposed. 
He  will  have  custody  of  the  children, 
but  he  has  agreed  that  when  he  doesn't 
have  time  to  spend  with  them,  I  will 
stay  with  them.  T  will  also  spend  two 
months  in  the  summer  with  the  children 
on  the  boat.  If  he  remarries  and  wants 
to  use  the  yacht  with  his  new  wife,  we 
will  work  out  another  arrangement." 
Friends  say  that  Nasser  Al-Rashid  is  al- 
ready involved  with  another  beautiful 
young  Lebanese  woman. 

According  to  Mouna,  she  is  keeping 
the  house  in  Neuilly  as  well  as  a  house 
in  Los  Angeles,  reportedly  purchased 
for  $7.5  million  in  1989.  She  is  also  rent- 


ing a  penthouse  in  the  Hotel  Plaza 
Athenee  in  Manhattan.  Under  Muslim 
law,  a  woman's  jewelry  is  hers  to  keep, 
usually  even  in  the  case  of  divorce,  so 
Mouna  says  she  still  possesses  a  $50 
million  trove.  In  fact,  she  told  me  she 
has  made  "a  little  fortune"  buying  and 
selling  stones  over  the  years. 

"I  was  at  my  desk  in  Riyadh,  talking 
with  Geneva  and  New  York  and  some- 
times Hong  Kong.  I  started  with  a  ruby, 
and  then  diamonds.  That  was  the  only 
business  I  could  do  in  Saudi  Arabia,  be- 
cause I  could  do  it  on  the  phone  without 
meeting  any  men,  and  it  was  my  rightful 
property."  She  said  she  had  been  offered 
$13  million  for  the  Mouna  Diamond, 
but  was  holding  out  for  more. 

"I  already  have  $3  million  put  aside 
from  my  profits  for  the  inter- 
national school  I  am  going 
to  build  in  Majorca.  I  think 
it  would  be  great  to  be  a 
headmistress  in  my  old 
age."  Plans  for  her  future 
seem  to  come  a  mile  a 
minute:  she  wants  to  make 
an  exercise  video  like  Jane 
Fonda's  for  Arab  women 
and  record  a  song  like 
Melissa  Etheridge's  "Yes  I 
Am."  She  also  wants  to  be 
taken  seriously  as  a  philan- 
thropist. Deeda  Blair  told 
me  Mouna  has  already  made 
three  substantial  donations  to 
the  Harvard  aids  Institute. 

In  March  she  raised  close 
to  a  million  dollars  for  the 
Majorca  school  at  an  auction  of  paint- 
ings, silver,  and  objets  dart  in  Paris. 
King  Juan  Carlos  of  Spain  plans  to  at- 
tend the  laying  of  the  cornerstone  this 
summer,  she  told  me  the  last  time  I  saw 
her.  It  was  in  Los  Angeles,  at  Vanity 
Fair's  Oscar  party,  and  she  managed  to 
turn  heads  in  a  crowd  that  included 
Raquel  Welch  and  Diana  Ross.  She  was 
wearing  a  turquoise  marabou  jacket  and 
a  black  sequin  minidress  by  Yves  Saint 
Laurent,  black  patent-leather  Gucci 
boots,  and  a  75-carat  aquamarine-dia- 
mond pendant.  Her  entourage  was  just 
as  showy:  the  beauteous  blonde  Duchess 
of  Seville,  the  hunky  pop  singer  Nick 
Scotti,  and  Prince  Dimitri  of  Yugo- 
slavia, whose  daytime  title  is  vice  presi- 
dent of  Sotheby's  jewelry  department  in 
New  York.  Can  we  expect  the  jewelry 
auction  to  end  all  jewelry  auctions  there 
this  fall? 

To  quote  Mouna,  "I'm  free,  I'm  free, 
I'm  free!  Free  to  do  whatever  I  want,  go 
wherever  I  want!"  □ 


VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


175 


Th 


oniascs 


(Continued  from  page  142)  questions," 
says  one  Clintonite.  According  to  Bob 
Woodward's  book  77??  Agenda,  Susan  and 
Hillary  decided  in  the  early  days  of  the  ad- 
ministration to  move  the  press  operation 
out  of  the  White  House  and  into  the  Old 
Executive  Office  Building,  in  order  to  get 
hated  journalists  farther  away  from  the 
First  Family.  In  the  end,  they  settled  for 
denying  reporters  their  traditional  access 
to  the  office  of  the  communications  direc- 
tor (then  George  Stephanopoulos),  where 
they  had  previously  gone  to  get  the  admin- 
istration's reaction  to  breaking  news.  This 
provoked  a  calamitous  deterioration  in 
Stephanopoulos's  relations  with  the  press. 

Staying  outside  the  administration  left 
Thomases  free  to  develop  her  legal  busi- 
ness, but  that  too  became  a  source  of  grief. 
A  Newsweek  article  by  Michael  Isikoff  that 
appeared  in  1995  offered  a  peek  into  Thom- 
ases' heavy-handed  lobbying  style  during 
her  weekly  Wednesday  trips  to  the  capital. 
She  reportedly  told  one  client,  "This  mat- 
ter is  not  going  to  be  reviewed  by  the  pres- 
ident of  the  United  States"  -implying  that 
such  a  review  was  well  within  her  power, 
if  need  be.  Later,  she  had  Ickes  reach  down 
the  chain  of  command  to  request  a  status 
report  on  the  case.  "She's  not  shy  about  her 
access,"  says  one  administration  official. 
"You'll  never  find  her  playing  it  down." 

In  line  with  the  administration's  rhet- 
oric about  restricting  the  activities  of  re- 
volving-door lobbyists,  holders  of  White 
House  passes  were  required  in  1993  to  dis- 
close their  clients.  The  so-called  "Gang  of 
Four"  top  campaign  advisers— James  Car- 
ville,  Paul  Begala,  Mandy  Grunwald,  and 
Stanley  Greenberg— all  dutifully  did  so. 
Thomases,  however,  gave  up  her  pass,  rather 
than  reveal  the  names  of  those  she  worked 
for.  "It's  outrageous,"  says  Charles  Lewis, 
director  of  the  lobbying-watchdog  group  the 
Center  for  Public  Integrity.  "Lots  of  lobby- 
ists with  a  50th  of  her  access  are  required 
to  disclose.  For  her  not  to  disclose  her 
clients  is  contemptuous  to  say  the  least." 

But  the  issue  of  Thomases'  lobbying 
has  been  overwhelmed  by  a  more  im- 
mediate ethical  question,  her  role  in  the 
handling  of  documents  in  the  aftermath 
of  Vince  Foster's  suicide.  In  the  48  hours 
following  that  tragic  and  stunning  event, 
there  was  a  flurry  of  phone  calls  among 
Thomases,  Bernard  Nussbaum.  Hillary 
Clinton,  and  her  chief  of  staff.  Maggie 
Williams.  At  first,  according  to  Justice 
Department  lawyers,  Nussbaum  had 
agreed  to  let  them  perform  the  search. 


but  after  the  calls,  he  announced  that  he 
would  do  it  himself,  with  the  lawyers  and 
Park  Police  officers  watching  from  a  dis- 
tance. As  a  result,  documents  relating  to 
Whitewater  were  removed  from  Foster's 
office  without  being  seen  by  investiga- 
tors. The  manner  in  which  the  search 
was  conducted  fueled  suspicions  that  the 
White  House  was  trying  to  hide  some- 
thing, suspicions  that  have  yet  to  be  en- 
tirely dispelled. 

Phone  records  obtained  by  the  Senate 
Whitewater  committee  provided  almost 
overwhelming  circumstantial  evidence  that 
Thomases  had  been  a  crucial  link  in  re- 
straining the  search.  At  6:44  a.m.  Little 
Rock  time  on  the  second  day  after  the  sui- 
cide, the  First  Lady,  who  was  staying  with 
her  mother,  received  a  call  from  Maggie 
Williams.  They  talked  for  seven  minutes. 
At  6:57,  Mrs.  Clinton  phoned  Susan  Thom- 
ases, and  they  spoke  for  three  minutes.  At 
7:01,  Thomases  paged  Bernie  Nussbaum. 
At  7:25,  she  called  Mrs.  Clinton  back. 
Thomases  then  placed  a  series  of  calls  to 
the  White  House  while  Nussbaum  and 
others  were  meeting  about  the  search.  In 
the  midst  of  this  volley,  Nussbaum  an- 
nounced to  the  investigators  that  they 
wouldn't  be  allowed  to  look  at  all  of  Fos- 
ter's papers.  Steve  Neuwirth  of  the  White 
House  counsel's  office  testified  that  Nuss- 
baum had  told  him  that  the  First  Lady 
and  Thomases  didn't  want  the  police  to 
have  "unfettered  access."  (Nussbaum  did 
not  recall  saying  this  and  has  claimed  that 
the  decision  was  entirely  his  own.) 

In  a  series  of  hearings  before  the  com- 
mittee, Thomases  said  she  hadn't  instruct- 
ed anyone  about  the  search  or  acted  as  a 
conduit  for  instructions.  In  three  appear- 
ances, her  memory  of  the  calls  grew  dim- 
mer and  dimmer.  When  she  first  testified, 
in  August,  she  had  a  detailed  recollection 
of  her  conversation  with  Hillary  Clinton 
after  the  suicide;  she  was  certain  they  had 
not  discussed  the  documents  in  Foster's 
office.  She  claimed  a  call  to  Nussbaum 
was  merely  an  attempt  to  "reach  out"  to 
him.  Nussbaum,  however,  remembered 
this  conversation  differently.  "She  said 
people  are  concerned  about  whether  I  was 
using  the  correct  procedure.  .  .  .  Whether 
it  was  proper  to  give  people  access  to  the 
office  at  all,"  Nussbaum  testified  in  a 
deposition.  At  that  point,  just  after  the 
suicide,  the  only  "people"  at  the  White 
House  Thomases  had  spoken  to  were  the 
president,  the  First  Lady,  and  Maggie 
Williams. 

In  November,  the  D'Amato  committee 
gained  access  to  additional  phone  records, 
which  showed  a  total  of  17  calls  between 
Thomases  and  various  White  House  per- 


sonnel after  the  suicide.  She  was  sum- 
moned again,  but  her  recollection  was 
vague.  She  did  not  remember  whom  she 
spoke  to  when  she  called  the  White 
House,  or  even  if  she  spoke  to  anyone,  or 
what  any  of  the  conversations  were  about, 
other  than  her  offering  emotional  support 
"It  defies  credibility,"  D'Amato  fumed, 
Lauch  Faircloth  of  North  Carolina  was 
even  angrier.  "Ms.  Thomases,  I  do  not  be- 
lieve .  .  .  that  this  absolute  plethora  of  re- 
peated telephone  calls  from  you  to  Ms, 
Williams,  to  Mrs.  Clinton,  back  and  forth, 
were  all  touchy-feely,  love-in -bloom,  sym- 
pathetic telephone  calls."  he  scoffed. 

In  her  third  and  final  appearance,  in 
December,  committee  counsel  Michaei 
Chertoff  grilled  Thomases  about  anothei 
set  of  eyebrow-raising  circumstances.  Or 
July  26,  a  few  days  after  the  search 
Thomases  received  a  call  from  Robert 
Barnett,  one  of  the  Clintons'  personal  at- 
torneys. The  next  morning  Hillary  Clin- 
ton left  a  message  requesting  that  she 
come  that  day  to  the  White  House.  On 
the  27th,  both  Barnett  and  Thomases 
were  at  the  White  House— Barnett  was 
there  to  pick  up  the  box  of  the  Clintons 
personal  papers  that  had  been  removed 
from  Foster's  office.  Visitor  logs  show 
Thomases  stayed  there  for  six  hours,  in 
eluding  an  hour  and  a  half  in  the  persom 
al  residence.  As  to  what  happened.  Thorn 
ases'  mind  was  an  absolute  blank. 

chertoff:  What  did  the  First  Lady  want  tc 

see  you  about? 
Thomases:  I  have  no  idea. 
chertoff:  Did  you  see  her? 
Thomases:  I  honestly  do  not  remember  see. 

ing  her.  .  .  . 
chertoff:  Do  you  remember  coming  to  the 

White  House? 

THOMASES:  No. 

chertoff:  You  come  up  to  the  second  flooi 
of  the  residence,  remember  that? 

THOMASES:  No.  .  .  . 

chertoff:  What  were  you  doing  up  on  tha 
second  floor  for  an  hour  and  a  half? 

Thomases:  I  don't  remember.  .  .  . 

chertoff:  Did  you  see  the  First  Lady? 

thomases:  I  don't  really  remember  seeing 
the  First  Lady  that  day. 

The  performance  ieft  D'Amato  apo 
plectic.  The  senator,  however,  seems  tc 
have  missed  a  crucial  inconsistency  ir 
Thomases'  testimony,  which  has  gone  un 
remarked.  In  August,  Thomases  had  tes 
titled,  "I  did  not  discuss  my  opinion—  m\ 
appearance  here  today  with  Hillary  Clin 
ton."  In  the  December  hearing,  however 
when  she  was  being  asked  again  abou 
whether  she  had  ever  discussed  the  han 
dling  of  documents  with  Hillary,  Thorn 
ases  acknowledged  that  they  discussec 
the  issue  in  the  context  of  her  upcoming 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  199. 


Lis 


tort 


testimony  "before  the  first  hearing."  This 
contradiction  is  important  because  it 
goes  to  the  heart  of  whether  Thomases 
and  the  First  Lady  straightened  out  their 
stories  about  not  attempting  to  constrain 
the  search  of  Foster's  office. 

Thomases  has  seemed  to  contradict 
herself  on  other  points  as  well.  In 
Blood  Sport,  Jim  Stewart  describes  a  hith- 
erto unknown  visit  Vince  Foster  paid 
Thomases  shortly  before  his  suicide.  Since 
the  only  other  participant  in  the  conversa- 
tion is  dead,  Thomases  is  obviously  the 
source.  According  to  Stewart,  and  hence 
to  Thomases,  Foster  brought  up  the  travel- 
office  affair,  "adding  that  he  didn't  trust 
David  Watkins,  who  he  feared  might  fab- 
ricate or  embellish  the  facts  to  cover  him- 
self—possibly at  the  expense  of  the  First 
Lady."  The  apparent  reference  here  is  to 
a  memo  written  by  Watkins  about  the 
travel-office  scandal,  which  surfaced  in 
late  1995,  more  than  two  years  after  the 
alleged  conversation  between  Foster  and 
Thomases  and  long  after  it  was  originally 
subpoenaed  by  congressional  investiga- 
tors. The  document  damagingly  portrayed 
Hillary  Clinton  as  far  more  involved  in 
the  travel-office  firings  than  she  has  ac- 
knowledged in  public  statements  and  in  a 
sworn  deposition.  As  relayed  by  Stewart, 
Thomases'  spontaneous  recollection  ap- 
pears as  a  stunning  effort  at  spin  control: 
an  attempt  to  cover  for  the  First  Lady. 

But  the  rest  of  the  Thomases-supplied 
passage  disturbs  those  who  were  Foster's 
friends  much  more.  "One  thing  he  had  not 
missed  about  his  life  in  Little  Rock  was 
Lisa,  his  wife,"  Stewart  continues.  "The 
marriage  had  not  been  what  he'd  hoped 
for,  and  it  hadn't  been  for  years.  .  .  .  She 
was  completely  dependent  on  him,  and 
this  had  become  a  burden."  This  was  seen 
as  a  shocking  act  of  disloyalty  and  disre- 
spect to  Usa  Foster.  But  Thomases  had 
created  an  even  bigger  problem  for  herself. 
This  story  contradicts  what  Thomases  told 
the  F.B.I,  about  her  lack  of  insight  into 
Foster's  suicide.  According  to  F.B.I,  notes, 
when  Thomases  was  asked  in  1994  about 
the  Foster  suicide  she  did  not  even  recall 
such  a  conversation  taking  place.  (Thom- 
ases' lawyer  has  said  that  the  F.B.I.'s  in- 
formation is  incorrect.)  Realizing  this 
only  after  she  had  spoken  to  Stewart, 
Thomases  and  her  lawyer  tried,  without 
,  success,  to  get  him  to  remove  the  pas- 
sage from  the  book  before  publication. 
(Neither  Thomases  nor  her  lawyer  re- 
;  turned  calls  for  this  article.)  These  issues 
,  may  be  explored  if  Thomases  testifies 
i  again.  The  Whitewater  committee  tried 
i  to  recall  her  earlier  this  year  for  a  fourth 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


time.  But  having  slipped  on  the  ice  and 
broken  her  leg,  she  was  granted  a  delay. 

Susan  Heilbron,  a  New  York  lawyer 
and  close  friend  of  Thomases',  says 
there  is  a  good  explanation  for  the  memo- 
ry lapses:  M.S.,  the  disease  from  which 
they  both  suffer.  "It's  like  a  light  switch," 
Heilbron  says,  describing  her  own  difficul- 
ties remembering  certain  events.  Though 
not  all  people  with  M.S.  experience  memo- 
ry loss,  Heilbron  points  out  that  when 
Thomases  testified  most  recently  she  ap- 
peared to  be  suffering  from  a  speech  im- 
pairment, another  symptom  of  M.S.- 
related  cognitive  dysfunction.  Why  hasn't 
Thomases  raised  this  issue  in  her  own  de- 
fense? Like  many  highly  functioning  peo- 
ple with  M.S.,  Heilbron  says,  Thomases 
"doesn't  like  to  talk  about  her  infirmity." 

Dr.  Nicholas  La  Rocca,  a  Westchester, 
New  York-based  M.S.  specialist  who 
knows  Thomases  (but  has  never  treated 
her),  finds  this  explanation  plausible. 
"M.S.  can  affect  memory,"  he  says.  "It  is 
estimated  that  upwards  of  perhaps  50  per- 
cent of  people  who  have  M.S.  experience 
cognitive  dysfunction  at  some  point  dur- 
ing the  course  of  illness."  He  says  that  the 
small  part  of  Thomases'  testimony  he  saw 
"did  remind  me  of  some  of  my  clinical  ex- 
perience with  M.S.  in  which  extremely  in- 
telligent, high-functioning  people  have 
said  they  have  extreme  difficulty  at  times 
remembering  entire  conversations." 

But  even  Thomases'  allies  don't  entire- 
ly buy  this  interpretation.  "Everybody 
thinks  Susan  lied  to  Congress,  including 
all  of  her  friends,"  says  one  administra- 
tion insider.  "Clearly,  it's  what  happened. 
She  bullied  Bernie  into  this  position  on 
the  search.  He  already  had  the  worst  po- 
litical judgment  in  the  last  thousand  years 
and  was  receptive  to  her  bad  advice.  She 
clearly  was  not  on  the  phone  to  weep." 
Says  another  Clinton  source,  "She  has  a 
great  memory  for  details,  especially  when 
it  has  to  do  with  evening  up  the  score." 
But  her  M.S.  probably  means  that  if  Sen- 
ator D'Amato,  or  Whitewater  special  pros- 
ecutor Kenneth  Starr,  tries  to  bring  a  per- 
jury charge  against  Thomases  there's  lit- 
tle chance  it  will  stick. 

There  are,  however,  other  repercussions 
to  being  viewed  as  a  public  liar.  Early  in 
the  administration,  Thomases'  connections 
brought  a  number  of  new  clients  to  Willkie 
Farr.  More  recently,  lawyers  at  the  firm  in- 
dicate, she  has  become  a  liability.  The  bad 
publicity  also  means  that  her  role  in  the 
Clinton  re-election  effort  will  be  more 
sub-rosa  this  time.  Thomases  was  set  to 
run  the  campaign  in  New  York  with  Vic- 
tor Kovner,  a  longtime  friend,  but  Kov- 


ner  will  now  have  that  position  to  himself. 

Thomases'  friends  and  allies  argue  that 
she  has  been  punished  according  to  a  dou- 
ble standard:  as  a  tough  woman,  she  is  a 
lightning  rod  for  sexist  criticism.  "I  never 
heard  anyone  say  James  Carville  was  too 
tough,"  says  David  Mixner,  who  raised 
money  for  Clinton  and  advised  the  cam- 
paign on  gay  issues.  "I  did  not  find  her  any 
tougher  or  any  more  crude  or  gross.  I  often 
found  her  more  cooperative  than  others." 

Carville,  who  feuded  openly  with  Thom- 
ases in  1992,  accepts  this  notion  himself. 
"When  women  that  age  broke  in,  they  had 
to  be  a  little  tough  and  brash  and  bitchy," 
he  says.  "She  can  be  excessive,  but  she's  a 
person  who  had  to  be  aggressive.  They 
didn't  have  glass  ceilings  back  then,  they 
had  steel  ceilings."  Adds  Carville's  old 
partner,  Paul  Begala,  "I  think  this  is  a  sex- 
ist bias.  Hillary  has  to  be  pigeonholed  as  a 
power  bitch.  Lady  Macbeth,  or  the  Martha 
Stewart  mom.  She's  complicated,  but  the 
press  doesn't  want  to  give  her  that.  I  suspect 
that  Susan  suffers  from  the  same  problem." 

But  there's  another  kind  of  double  stan- 
dard which  does  more  to  explain 
Thomases.  It  is  her  own  inconsistency  on 
ethical  issues.  Given  that  she  has  been 
Hillary  Clinton's  sidekick  in  the  politics  of 
virtue,  her  ordinary  lapses  are  compound- 
ed by  extraordinary  hypocrisy.  The  corol- 
lary of  Hillary's  secret  commodities  trades 
is  Thomases'  lobbying  for  clients  and  her 
apparent  disingenuousness  under  oath. 

To  some  extent  the  animosity  directed 
at  Thomases  seems  meant  for  the  First 
Lady.  It  is  probably  not  a  coincidence 
that  in  Primary  Colors  the  character  mod- 
eled on  Hillary  Clinton  is  named  Susan. 
Thomases  is  Rodham's  proxy,  and  now 
her  scapegoat,  designated  to  absorb  as- 
sorted ill  will.  "Susan  is  tremendously 
loyal  to  Mrs.  Clinton,"  acknowledges  one 
of  Thomases'  frequent  antagonists.  "She 
would  walk  over  hot  coals  for  her.  In 
fact,  she's  doing  that  now." 

Were  Hillary  beloved,  such  a  sacrifice 
might  be  appreciated.  But  even  inside  the 
administration,  Thomases  seems  to  have 
become  an  outlet  for  the  frustration  that 
many  feel  but  cannot  demonstrate  toward 
the  First  Lady. 

That  animosity  may  ultimately  sever 
what  has  proved  until  now  an  amazingly 
durable  relationship.  Washington  is  rife 
with  rumors  that  the  First  Lady  has  belat- 
edly begun  to  distance  herself  from  Thom- 
ases, who  is  described  as  deeply  perturbed 
by  the  rift.  Whatever  her  other  failings, 
Thomases  has  surely  been  loyal  to  the 
Clintons.  She  always  assumed  her  staunch- 
ness would  continue  to  be  repaid,  n 

177 


Menendez 


(Continued  from  page  153)  instructions  to 
the  jury.  Keating  remains  in  prison  on 
federal  convictions. 

They  call  Judge  Weisberg  Stanley 
Scissorhands  since  he  cut  so  much  out 
oj  the  defense  case. 

—Radio  reporter  who  covered  the 
second  Menendez  trial. 


M 


arti  Shelton  called  from  Virginia  af- 
ter the  Menendez  verdicts.  She  had 
had  a  telephone  friendship  with  Lyle 
Menendez  during  the  first  trial  and  had 
taped  many  of  his  calls.  I  have  listened  to 
some  of  the  scare  tactics  that  were  later 
used  to  keep  her  from  coming  forward 
with  what  she  knew.  "It's  the  right  ver- 
dict, but  it's  sad,"  she  said. 


Faye  Resnick  called  me  from 

Paris  today.  She's  so  glad  to  he  out  of  here. 

She  was  getting  death  threats. 

—Stacy  Gantzos,  maitre  d' 

at  Drai's,  talking  over  her  shoulder 

as  she  led  me  to  my  table. 

Faye  Resnick 's  coming  hack  from  Paris. 
She  missed  [her  daughter]  Francesco. 

-Stacy  Gantzos,  talking  over 

her  shoulder  as  she  led  me  to  my 

table  three  weeks  later. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  people 
I  met  on  this  trip  out  to  Los  An- 
geles—in the  back  room  of  Hamburger 
Hamlet  on  the  Strip— was  Anthony  Davis, 
the  great  football  star,  who  followed  Simp- 
son at  U.S.C.  and  was  on  the  cover  of 
Sports  Illustrated  three  times.  Surprisingly, 
he  also  looks  like  Simpson,  although  he  is 
heavier,  and  he  is  often  mistaken  for 
him,  especially  when  he  is  in  Brentwood. 
Davis,  who  is  called  A.D.,  is  definitely 
not  a  Simpson  supporter.  "Socially,  he 
was  not  part  of  his  people.  I  know  him 
like  the  back  of  my  hand.  I  always  hated 
being  compared  to  him,  because  I'm 
nothing  like  him,"  he  said.  Davis,  who 
speaks  in  a  low  voice,  is  a  charismatic  fig- 
ure who  demands  your  attention.  He  said 
he  first  met  Nicole  in  Buffalo  at  Simp- 
son's house,  when  he  and  O.J.  were  both 
in  the  pros.  "'Who's  that?'  I  asked. 
Thai's  O.J.'s  woman."  I  was  told.  I 
thought  she  was  too  young  for  me,  and  I 
was  24  at  the  time. 

"O.J.  doesn't  like  black  women.  It's 
like  he  forgot  his  own  mother  was  black. 
The  man  forgot  his  roots.  He  forgot  he 
was  a  black  man.  He  abandoned  his  peo- 

178 


pie,"  said  Davis.  He  has  equal  contempt 
for  Johnnie  Cochran,  and  is  furious  that 
Cochran  is  representing  U.S.C.  against 
Marvin  Cobb,  a  black  former  U.S.C.  ath- 
lete whom  the  university  removed  from 
his  position  as  assistant  athletic  director. 
"I'm  embarrassed  to  be  a  black  man 
with  guys  like  that  out  there.  Guys  like 
that  make  it  tough  for  me.  You're  look- 
ing at  a  real  nigger,  a  black  nigger,"  he 
said,  pointing  to  himself.  "These  guys 
stepped  over  the  line.  I  try  to  be  an  up- 
standing guy.  I'm  clean.  I  help  my  com- 
munity. O.J.'s  a  goddamned  sellout.  This 
trial  set  us  back;  the  verdict  set  us  back 
years.  There's  been  a  mist  in  the  air  ever 
since  the  verdict.  The  only  thing  that 
beat  the  system  was  his  money.  The  race 
card  wasn't  the  issue;  murder  was.  But 
Johnnie's  for  Johnnie,  and  O.J.'s  for  O.J. 
I  can  take  you  down  to  South  Central 
and  line  up  10  brothers,  and  9  of  them 
would  tell  you  he's  a  sellout.  When  you 
sell  out,  you  lose.  We  still  live  in  a  racist 
society.  You  can  be  the  greatest  star  on 
the  cover  of  every  magazine,  you're  still 
going  to  be  a  nigger  here.  I'm  not  here 
to  blast  the  man.  I'm  here  to  talk  right 
and  wrong.  Once  the  trial  was  over,  he 
went  to  the  black  community  one  time 
only  and  never  went  back.  My  people, 
the  black  people,  know  what  O.  J.  Simp- 
son was  about.  We  knew  exactly  where 
he  stood  for  years.  I  believe  we  have  a 
responsibility  to  our  people." 

Davis,  who  drives  a  black  Lincoln  and 
has  an  office  in  Beverly  Hills,  deals  in  af- 
fordable housing.  His  theory  of  the  mur- 
ders is  very  different  from  most  versions. 
He  believes  that  Simpson  was  involved 
"with  bad  people"  in  shady  business  deals 
involving  drugs  and  that  Nicole  knew 
about  them  and  had  started  to  talk.  "No- 
body's going  to  do  30  years  because  of 
some  pussy  you're  jealous  of,  man.  This 
is  something  bigger.  There's  things  about 
that  story  that  no  one  knows  about  yet." 

The  guy  would  have  been  better  off 

if  he  d  gone  to  jail.  In  jail  he  wouldn't  look 

so  bad.  Another  prisoner  would  say, 

"Oh,  that's  nothing,  O.J.  I  killed  five  people.  " 

Or  another  guy  would  say, 

"Listen, O.J. ,  I'm  a  child-molester. 

In  here,  they  think  that's  worse." 

—A  television  reporter 

who  didn't  want  his  name  used, 

during  dinner  at  Eclipse. 

Iran  into  prosecution  lawyer  Brian  Kel- 
berg  one  Saturday  morning  on  Rodeo 
Drive  in  Beverly  Hills.  It  was  Kelberg 
who  had  acted  out  the  murders  in  front 
of  the  Simpson  jury— with  himself  as  the 


victims  and  the  chief  medical  examiner. 
Dr.  Lakshmanan  Sathyavagiswaran,  as 
the  perpetrator— staging  each  assault,  with 
a  ruler  for  a  knife,  the  way  he  believed 
Simpson  cut  the  throats  of  his  wife 
Nicole  and  Ron  Goldman.  Although  Kel- 
berg had  never  been  very  friendly  during 
the  trial,  that  day  on  Rodeo  Drive  we  in- 
stantly connected,  like  war  veterans  at  a 
reunion,  in  the  bond  that  unites  all  of  us 
who  sat  in  Judge  Ito's  courtroom  for  the 
long  haul,  and  we  began  talking  of  the  ex- 
perience we  had  shared. 

"What  do  you  make  of  how  O.J.'s  be- 
having since  the  acquittal?"  I  asked. 

"He  has  deluded  himself  into  believing 
he  didn't  do  it,"  said  Kelberg. 

We  're  not  the  original  Smothers  Brothers 
But  we  are  real  brothers. 
I'm  Erik.  This  is  Lyle.  We  don't  care 
who  Mom  liked  best. 

—The  Smothers  Brothers 
in  their  nightclub  act.! 

I  had  lunch  at  Dr.  Deli  on  Van  Nuys 
Boulevard  with  Craig  Cignarelli,  who 
stopped  by  the  courthouse  one  day. 
during  the  closing  arguments.  Cignarelli 
has  been  a  principal  figure  in  the  Me- 
nendez case  since  a  few  days  after  the 
second  memorial  service  for  the  slaini 
parents,  in  Princeton,  when  Erik  Menen 
dez,  who  had  been  his  best  friend  for: 
two  years,  confessed  to  Cignarelli  that 
he  and  Lyle  had  killed  their  parents. 
During  the  first  trial,  Cignarelli  quoted! 
Erik  as  having  told  him,  "Lyle  said, 
'Shoot  Mom.'"  Jose  Menendez  had  not 
liked  Cignarelli  and  had  once  kickedd 
him  off  the  property  of  the  Beverly  Hills 
house.  Cignarelli  was  a  prosecution  wit- 
ness twice.  Despised  by  Leslie  Abram- 
son,  he  despises  her  right  back.  During 
lunch  he  told  me  that  Abramson  hadf 
walked  by  him  in  the  corridor  and  said, 
"Scumbag."  Last  year  he  graduated 
from  the  University  of  California  at  San- 
ta Barbara.  He  is  currently  working  on 
the  political  campaign  of  Republican 
candidate  Richard  Sybert,  who  is  run- 
ning for  Congress  from  the  24th  Con- 
gressional District.  After  the  campaign, 
Cignarelli  will  attend  law  school.  It  is 
his  hope  to  be  a  United  States  senator 
one  day,  an  ambition  mocked  by  Abram- 
son in  her  closing  argument. 

Al  Cowlings  comes  in  here. 

I  told  the  manager  I  wouldn  't  serve  him, 

but  they  said  I  had  to  if  he  was 

a  customer.  Last  time  he  was  here, 

I  called  Petrocelli's  office, 

because  they  were  looking  for 


VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996      *! 


Ml 


him  to  serve  a  subpoena  for  the 

depositions  for  the  civil  suit, 

but  no  one  called  me  back.  If  I  had 

to  wait  on  him,  I'd  tell  him 

I  didn't  like  to  wait  on  someone  who 

tried  to  help  a  killer  get  away. 

If  he  did  anything  to  me,  I'd  call 

the  National  Enquirer. 

I've  got  the  number  taped  to  the  wall 

by  the  telephone  in  the  kitchen. 

—Waitress  at  Nate  'n  Al's, 

a  popular  Beverly  Hills  deli, 

where  many  industry 

figures  have  breakfast. 

/  want  to  show  you  something. 
See  this  trash  bin?  In  the  trial,  this  is 
what  they  said  in  court  O.J.  put  the 
package  in.  Tliey  didn  't  even  have  this 
kind  of  trash  bin  until  later.  Here's 
the  kind  over  here  he  put  it  in.  See? 

—Baggage  handler  for 
American  Airlines  at  LAX. 

Simpson's  friend  Robert  Kardashian 
will  always  be  remembered  as  the  per- 
son who  walked  off  Simpson's  property 
the  day  after  the  murders  carrying  a  Louis 
Vuitton  bag  that  many  people  believed 
held  the  bloody  clothes  worn  by  the  killer. 
I  have  never  felt  that  that  was  so.  I  don't 
believe  that  Simpson  would  have  brought 
bloody  clothes  back  to  Los  Angeles  from 
Chicago,  where  he  had  gone  after  the  mur- 
ders to  play  in  a  golf  tournament,  knowing 
that  he  would  be  met  by  the  police.  I  do 
wonder,  however,  if  Kardashian  could 
have  played  a  part  in  the  removal  of  the 
murder  weapon  from  the  golf  bag  that  ar- 
rived at  LAX  the  day  after  Simpson's  re- 
turn from  Chicago,  when  he  and  Simpson, 
in  the  midst  of  his  mourning,  went  to  the 
airport  to  pick  up  Simpson's  golf  clubs.  A 
knife  in  a  golf  bag  might  have  gone  through 
security  undetected. 

One  day  as  I  was  walking  in  the  Amer- 
ican Airlines  terminal  at  LAX,  a  woman 
I  didn't  know  yelled  out  to  me  that  I  had 
just  missed  Kardashian,  who  was  going  to 
Minneapolis  on  a  frequent-flier  ticket. 
Then  I  ran  into  him  in  the  Admirals 
Club.  "I  hear  you're  going  to  Minneapo- 
lis," I  said.  I  have  had  a  complicated  re- 
lationship with  Kardashian  throughout 
the  Simpson  case.  Once,  I  warned  a  lady 
from  Johnnie  Cochran's  office,  whom 
Kardashian  was  rumored  to  be  involved 
with,  that  one  of  the  tabloid  papers  was 
going  to  write  about  the  relationship.  He 
thanked  me  at  the  time.  Although  I  had 
not  written  warmly  about  Kardashian, 
when  my  son  Alex  was  missing  in  the 
Arizona  mountains  during  the  trial,  he 
wrote  me  one  of  the  nicest  letters  I  have 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


ever  received,  a  father-to-father  letter, 
which  touched  me  very  much.  I  never  did 
find  out  why  he  was  going  to  Minneapo- 
lis that  day,  but  we  had  this  exchange: 

I  said,  "I've  seen  you  on  Hard  Copy  a 
couple  of  times  when  you  and  [writer 
Larry]  Schiller  were  with  Simpson  when 
he  was  making  his  video." 

Kardashian  looked  me  straight  in  the 
eye,  touched  my  arm,  and  said,  "Not  any- 
more, Dominick.  I've  pulled  away." 

"Really?" 

"Really." 

Later  I  heard  that  Kardashian  and 
Simpson  were  no  longer  speaking.  What  I 
had  known  prior  to  this  accidental  meet- 
ing was  that  Kardashian  was  the  secret 
partner  of  Larry  Schiller  on  his  book 
about  the  case,  which  was  actually  being 
written  by  James  Willwerth  of  Time  mag- 
azine, who  covered  the  trial.  The  deal  un- 
der discussion  is  that  Kardashian  will  get 
a  substantial  portion  of  Schiller's  fee  but 
receive  no  credit.  Someone  I  know  who 
works  for  one  of  the  tabloid  papers  told 
me  that  many  of  the  Simpson  stories  that 
appeared  after  the  verdict  had  been  sold 
to  them  by  Schiller  and  Kardashian. 

Kardashian  was  at  the  time  of  the 
murders  engaged  to  a  beautiful,  rich, 
blonde  widow  in  her  30s  named  Denice 
Halicki,  with  whom  he  lived  in  the 
house  from  which  Simpson  and  A.  C. 
Cowlings  took  off  on  the  famous  white- 
Bronco  freeway  chase  after  Simpson 
had  been  examined  and  photographed 
by  Dr.  Henry  Lee,  America's  foremost 
forensic  scientist,  who  was  an  expert 
witness  for  the  defense  at  the  trial.  The 
couple  had  moved  into  the  house  just 
three  weeks  earlier.  During  the  trial,  I 
became  friendly  with  Denice  Halicki,  al- 
though we  were  ostensibly  on  opposite 
sides.  "Glamorous"  is  the  best  word  to 
describe  her.  She  has  very  long  legs  and 
wears  very  short  skirts  and  is  a  knock- 
out. After  Kardashian  and  Halicki  broke 
up,  she  moved  out.  The  story  went  at 
the  time  that  she  took  all  the  furniture 
and  the  television  sets  with  her. 

Halicki  has  the  kind  of  looks  that 
could  make  you  think  at  first  that  she  is 
all  beauty  and  no  brains,  but  that  is  cer- 
tainly not  the  case.  Although  she  and  her 
late  husband,  H.  B.  "Toby"  Halicki,  a 
maverick  independent-film  maker  known 
as  "the  car-crash  king,"  had  been  mar- 
ried only  three  months  when  he  was 
killed  in  an  accident  on  the  set  of  Gone 
in  60  Seconds  II— an  accident  she  wit- 
nessed—they had,  she  told  me,  "been  to- 
gether" six  years.  He  left  an  estate  of 
"close  to  $15  million,"  including  heavy 
investments  in  real  estate  as  well  as  enor- 


\1 


mous  antique-toy  and  vintage-automobile 
collections.  She  was  the  principal  benefi- 
ciary. Then  two  of  her  husband's  12  sib- 
lings and  a  few  other  people  wanted  a 
share.  She  went  to  Kardashian  for  legal 
advice,  which  is  how  they  met.  During 
the  Simpson  trial,  she  won  five  lawsuits 
over  her  inheritance,  and  two  more, 
against  the  court-appointed  administra- 
tor, are  pending.  She  started  a  Bible- 
study  group  in  order  to  alleviate  the  dark 
feelings  that  many  people  in  the  court- 
room felt.  Simpson's  sisters,  Shirley  and 
Carmelita,  were  among  those  who  at- 
tended, as  were  Simpson's  daughter  Ar- 
nelle  and  Johnnie  Cochran's  wife  Dale. 
Halicki  is  a  close  friend  of  Jo-Elian  Di- 
mitrius,  the  jury  consultant  for  the  de- 
fense. During  the  trial  they  went  to  the 
Cannes  Film  Festival  together.  Dimitrius, 
also  tall  and  blonde,  came  to  the  Vanity 
Fair  Oscar  party  at  Mortons  in  Beverly 
Hills  in  a  strapless  red  satin  dress  on  the 
arm  of  Larry  King. 

A  few  days  after  I  ran  into  Kardashi- 
an, Halicki  called  me  at  my  house  in 
Connecticut. 

"You  had  a  mistake  about  me  in  your 
next-to-last  'Letter  from  Los  Angeles,'" 
she  said. 

"What?" 

"You  said  I  was  shopping  on  the  day 
of  the  freeway  chase  and  wasn't  there  in 
the  house  at  the  time." 

I  had  indeed  written  that  she  had  left 
the  house  before  the  Bronco  chase. 

"Who  told  you  that?"  she  asked. 

"I  can't  tell  you." 

"Was  it  — ?"  She  gave  the  name  of  a 
person  who  appeared  to  be  a  defense  ally 
but  wasn't.  She  was  right. 

"Don't  you  see  what  they're  trying  to 
do?  They're  trying  to  minimize  me  in  the 
case.  They're  trying  to  make  me  look  like 
a  bimbo,  out  shopping  at  the  time.  Do 
you  really  think,  knowing  me,  that  I'm 
the  kind  of  person  who  would  be  shop- 
ping at  Neiman  Marcus  in  Beverly  Hills 
when  all  that  was  going  on  in  my  house? 
Of  course  I  was  there." 

I  laughed.  She  is  a  lady  who  likes  to  be 
at  the  center  of  the  action. 

"Remember,  that  was  half  my  house  at 
the  time.  Robert  and  I  had  just  moved  in 
there  a  few  weeks  before  the  murders.  Let 
me  ask  you  something:  did  you  also  hear 
that  I  took  all  the  furniture  when  I  moved 
out  on  Robert?" 

"And  the  TV  sets  too,"  I  replied. 

"They  spread  those  stories.  The  furni- 
ture and  the  TV  sets  were  all  mine  from 
my  previous  house." 

When  I  returned  to  Los  Angeles  for 
the  Menendez  (Continued  on  page  182) 

179 


) 

anel 

toll 

By  MICHAEL  LUTIN 


GEMINI   ^\  May  21-June  21 

In  the  past  you  have  driven  loved  ones  crazy  with  your  endless  shenani- 
gans—switching appointment  dates,  backing  out  of  deals,  writing  down 
your  phone  number  for  strangers,  and  so  on.  One  doesn't  need  a  CAT  scan 
to  learn  the  cause  of  this  erratic  behavior.  You're  a  Gemini.  Right  now 
you're  changing,  though.  In  fact,  the  only  people  you  turn  on  to  these  days 
are  the  ones  you  can't  fool.  You  are  actually  showing  signs  of  great  sen- 
sitivity to  others.  Don't  worry.  With  Venus  and  Mercury  retrograde,  you're 
up  to  your  old  tricks  again,  just  so  you  won't  lose  that  edge. 


CANCER    ^JP  June  22-July  22 

Don't  get  your  gallbladder  in  a  state  just  because  somebody  you  have 
counted  on  withdraws  support.  With  Jupiter  going  retrograde  in  your  7th 
house,  what  else  can  you  expect?  Besides,  it's  not  the  first  time  you've 
been  led  into  the  desert  by  a  very  convincing  guide  who,  it  later  turns  out, 
forgot  to  bring  the  water  canteen.  If  staunch  companions  seem  to  resem- 
ble rats  leaving  a  sinking  ship,  you  mustn't  fret.  Jupiter  will  finally  go  for- 
ward again  in  September.  Besides,  you  still  have  that  higher  power  you 
were  so  comforted  by  a  few  months  ago.  Don't  you? 


A 


LEO    %JL    July  23-August  22 

For  all  the  ribbing  Leos  take  concerning  how  self-involved  they  are  (some 
say  you  care  more  about  hairstyling  products  than  you  do  about  the  plight 
of  humanity),  you've  already  proved  yourself  to  be  a  pretty  caring  person. 
Now  that  Uranus  has  begun  its  transit  of  your  7th  house,  you're  even 
more  able  to  relate  to  people  and  listen  to  what  they  have  to  say,  no  mat- 
ter how  drawn-out  their  tales  seem.  If.  during  the  current  retrograde  mo- 
tion of  that  planet,  certain  people  disappear  suddenly,  let  them  go.  They'll 
be  back.  If  not.  there's  always  you,  the  mirror,  and  the  hair  spray. 


wy 


VIRGO      I  •J'    August  25-September  22 

Everyone  has  heard  the  old  cliche  about  Virgos:  they  are  obsessive  hypochon- 
driacs who  turn  to  chemotherapy  for  a  common  cold  but  who,  when  some- 
thing really  goes  wrong,  scream,  "I'm  not  sick!  I'm  not  sick!"  When  it 
comes  to  work  routine  and  fear  of  change,  Virgos  are  much  more  than  an 
army  of  rigid  little  creatures  doing  the  goose  step.  Many  members  of  your 
sign  are  inspired  and  creative,  even  if  their  world  is  a  little  on  the  small 
side.  As  Uranus  goes  retrograde  in  your  6th  house,  show  everyone  just  how 
healthy  and  spontaneous  you  can  be— without  the  usual  hysterics. 

LIBRA    «£b    September  23-October  23 

As  Chiron  limps  through  Libra,  and  Uranus  goes  retrograde,  the  fact  that 
Libras  have  been  deeply  injured  is  not  news.  Nor  is  the  fact  that  you're 
pissed  about  it— big-time.  In  reaction,  many  Libras  are  now  acting  out  and 
defending  relationships  that  deep  down  they  know  may  not  be  right.  It's 
only  natural.  However,  when  you  insist  on  doing  the  advanced  slope  the 
first  time  you  put  on  a  pair  of  skis,  probably  the  only  sane  thing  you  can 
do  next  is  keep  your  eye  on  the  finish  line  and  try  to  stay  upright.  You 
wouldn't  want  to  end  up  flat  on  your  back,  would  you? 


w 


SCORPIO     \  f  V    October  24-November  21 

If  you're  not  100  percent  in  sync  emotionally  and  sexually  with  loved  ones 
at  the  moment,  that's  O.K.  Disruptions  at  home  are  part  of  the  natural 
disorder  of  life  when  the  co-ruler  of  your  4th  house  goes  stationary.  It 
could  be  a  leaky  barn,  or  Grandma's  clogged  arteries,  or  any  one  of  84 
It-couldn't-ever-ha;  |  zj  things  that  nevertheless  occur  in  that  family 

of  yours,  whii  •    what  one  would  call  American  Gothic.  In 

fact,  the  but]  you    kitchen  table  is  closer  to  the  group 

seen     i    Stoi    •     n  than  it  is  to  the  Waltons.  No  offense. 


■**"""""' 


SAGITTARIUS 


November  22-December  21 


Because  the  human  race  is  generously  sprinkled  with  nervous  wrecks  am 
wild-eyed  nuts— at  least,  that's  what  one  would  think  to  hear  you  tall 
about  your  relationships— it's  hard  to  find  someone  who  doesn't  wiggle 
waffle,  pop  in  and  out  of  sanity,  and  fail  consistently  to  communicate  hon 
estly.  Besides,  in  your  new  determination  to  be  your  own  guide  and  fol 
low  your  own  star  (Pluto  in  Sagittarius),  you  should  be  listening  to  you 
own  voice  and  not  be  distracted  by  the  madness  of  others.  But  Venus  anc 
Mercury  retrograde  in  your  7th  house  make  it  very  tempting  to  do  so. 


-tf 


CAPRICORN     \J     December  22-January  19 

As  Uranus  makes  a  station  in  your  2nd  house  and  Jupiter  goes  retrograde 
in  your  sign,  you  may  resort  to  the  old  Scrooge  McDuck  ploy  of  sittinj 
on  a  pile  of  gold  and  shouting  at  those  you  love,  "You're  sending  me  t< 
the  poorhouse!"  To  be  fair,  you've  been  very  good  lately— much  more  gen 
erous  and  supportive  than  usual.  Don't  get  defensive.  Nobody  can  truth 
fully  say  you  don't  bend  over  backward  to  encourage  and  motivate  lovec 
ones  and  friends  to  do  better  and  improve  their  lives,  because  you  oftei 
do.  When  it  comes  to  money,  though  .  .  . 


AQUARIUS    tjk^    January  20-February  18 

A  lot  of  people  are  going  to  be  saying  that  you  are  not  yourself,  when  ii 
fact  you've  never  been  more  yourself  in  your  life.  Yes.  you're  acting  a  litj 
tie  bit  wacky,  but  anybody  who  has  ever  had  a  Uranus  transit  knows  ex 
actly  how  you're  feeling  these  days:  like  a  porcupine  on  the  warpath 
Astronomers  know  that  Uranus  (which  is  your  ruler,  by  the  way)  orbit 
the  sun  at  a  wacky  angle.  When  it  goes  retrograde,  as  it  is  now,  maybr 
a  few  of  your  coffee  beans  do  spill  out  of  the  grinder.  If  some  peopl< 
don't  like  it,  let  them  sue  you.  (They  probably  will.) 


PISCES 


X 


February  19-Marcb  20 

Some  astrology  columns  will  tell  you  that  Mars  in  your  3rd  house  or  Met 
cury  in  your  4th  means  that  you'll  be  yelling  about  money,  fighting  witii 
neighbors,  giving  your  brother  the  silent  treatment,  and  practically  livinn 
over  at  your  mother's  house,  if  not  reliving  her  life.  All  such  trivia  aboui 
daily  pursuits  only  divert  you  from  the  real  issue— the  seven-year  transit  c 
Uranus  through  your  12th  house,  which  demands  that  nothing  in  thi 
world  distract  you  from  your  true  path,  which  is  not  family,  kids,  career 
or  money.  It's  spirituality.  Laugh  if  you  want  to. 


ARIES       }       March  21-April  19 

This  may  not  be  the  best  time  for  communication.  Also,  there  may  b 
professional  delays  if  supporters  back  off  and  former  champions  start  herr 
ming  and  hawing.  That's  the  deal  when  planets  go  retrograde  in  your  3ro 
10th,  and  11th  houses.  None  of  it  finally  matters,  though,  for  two  reason; 
(1)  Since  Saturn  moved  into  your  sign,  you  haven't  been  standing  aroun> 
biting  your  nails  and  waiting  for  God  to  pick  up  his  messages  and  answe 
your  prayers.  You're  into  action,  regardless  of  where  the  planets  are.  (2 
You're  an  Aries,  so  the  more  flak  you  get,  the  more  you  thrive. 

TAURUS    O   April  20-May  20 

The  lives  of  Tauruses  everywhere  are  taking  the  oddest  turns.  Those  wh 
have  been  hoofing  it  in  the  back  row  of  the  chorus  are  suddenly  bein 
yanked  into  starring  roles.  Others,  who  were  sure  their  star  would  neve 
fall,  are  sitting  on  park  benches  reading  the  trade  papers.  With  Saturn  er 
tering  your  12th  house,  you  are  setting  out  on  a  personal  journey  nov 
whether  you  are  currently  making  national  policy  or  applying  for  unen 
ployment.  Your  mission  is— get  this— to  find  God.  That  does  not  mean  yo 
have  to  stop  shopping  and  negotiating  deals,  though. 

VANITY  FAIR/JUNE  199 


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Menendez 


(Continued  from  page  179)  verdict,  I 
met  with  Halicki  at  the  Hotel  Bel-Air. 
She  spoke  very  graciously  about  her  for- 
mer fiance.  "O.J.  used  Robert,"  she 
said.  "Robert  went  over  there  to  the 
house  on  Rockingham  as  soon  as  he 
heard  about  the  murders,  like  any 
friend  would,  and  O.J.  used  him  from 
then  on.  It's  been  terrible  for  Robert. 
His  friends  have  left  him." 

"Did  Simpson  stay  at  your  house?"  I 
asked. 

"From  the  night  after  the  murders  to 
the  freeway  chase,  he  slept  at  our  house." 

"Did  Paula  Barbieri  sleep  there?" 

"Yes,  except  for  one  night." 

"Do  you  ever  get  scared?"  I  asked. 

"No,"  she  replied. 

When  we  parted,  I  watched  a  Hotel 
Bel-Air  parking  valet  hold  the  door  of 
her  beige  Rolls-Royce  as  she  got  in  and 
waved  good-bye. 

Every  memory  is  self-serving,  and 
the  occasional  admission  of  error  offers 
the  author  an  opportunity  to 
congratulate  himself  far  his  honesty 
and  courage  in  mentioning  it. 

—John  Gregory  Dunne  in  his  book 

review  of  Christopher  Darden's 

In  Contempt  in  the  April  15,  1996, 

issue  of  Tlie  New  Yorker. 

Over  a  year  ago,  in  April  1995,  I 
wrote  in  this  magazine  that  Christo- 
pher Darden  was  the  person  to  watch  in 
the  Simpson  trial.  I  have  always  ad- 
mired Darden,  often  for  just  those 
things  that  his  detractors  criticize  him 
for.  I  have  rarely  met  a  person  who  is 
as  ethical  as  Darden.  In  a  justice  system 


in  which  truth  has  become  a  joke,  his 
sense  of  truth  is  a  beacon  of  light.  I  ad- 
mired that  he  had  the  courage  to  cry 
during  the  press  conference  after  he 
and  Marcia  Clark  lost  the  case.  Johnnie 
Cochran  gave  Darden  a  racially  cruel 
time  during  the  trial,  and  he  took  his 
lickings  for  the  disastrous  glove  experi- 
ment. He  has  come  out  of  this  trial  as  a 
person  to  watch.  What  he  has  shown  us 
is  that,  in  the  long  run,  losing  may  be 
more  victorious  than  a  victory  without 
honor.  As  of  April  7  of  this  year,  his 
book,  In  Contempt,  became  No.  1  on 
the  New  York  Times  best-seller  list. 

Sydney  smells  Nicole's  presence 
sometimes.  She  said,  "Mommy  was  just 
here.  I  can  smell  her  perfume. " 

—Robin  Greer,  a  friend  of 

Nicole  Brown  Simpson's  and  one 

of  the  authors  of  You  '11  Never 

Make  Love  in  This  Town  Again, 

discussing  the  Simpson 

children  during  dinner  at  Drai's. 

A  young  woman  named  Moya  Rimp, 
whom  I  met  during  the  Simpson  tri- 
al, called  to  tell  me  that  she  and  her 
mother,  Pauline  Rimp,  a  prominent  real- 
estate  woman  in  Brentwood,  had  moved 
into  Nicole  Brown  Simpson's  condo,  the 
scene  of  the  murders,  in  order  to  help 
the  Brown  family  sell  it.  The  Browns  are 
eager  to  get  rid  of  the  condo,  although 
as  yet  there  have  been  no  takers. 

"What's  it  like  living  there?"  I  asked. 

"Very  strange.  Tourists  are  still  com- 
ing by  to  look  at  it.  When  I  walk  the 
dog,  I  meet  all  these  people  in  the  neigh- 
borhood who  tell  me  things.  There's  one 
who  swears  she  saw  O.J.  talking  to  Ron 
and  Nicole  before  the  murders,  but  she 
wouldn't  come  forward." 


Moya  Rimp  invited  me  for  dinner.  I 
went.  Robert  Altman,  the  film  director, 
and  his  wife,  Kathryn,  were  also  there. 
Altman  is  a  cousin  of  Pauline  Rimp's. 
With  the  reverence  of  a  docent  at  the 
Getty  Museum,  Moya  Rimp  showed  us 
through  the  condo.  "This  is  where  Ni- 
cole's exercise  equipment  was,"  she 
said,  stopping  in  an  area  outside  the 
master  bedroom.  We  stared  at  the  emp- 
ty space,  then  moved  on.  "Now  we're 
entering  Nicole's  bedroom.  That  was 
her  bed,  and  beyond,  in  the  bathroom, 
you  can  see  her  tub,  which  was  filled 
with  water  that  night  and  had  lit  can- 
dles around  the  edge."  We  became 
caught  up  in  her  surreal  thrall. 

As  many  times  as  I  had  walked  by 
the  condo  and  looked  at  the  pictures  of 
the  crime  scene,  I  was  still  amazed  at 
how  large  the  place  is— 3,400  square 
feet— and  how  small  the  killing  area  is. 
I  perched  on  the  spot  outside  the  pic- 
ture window  looking  into  the  living 
room  where  Simpson  would  have  sat 
when  he  reportedly  spied  on  Nicole  pri- 
or to  the  killings.  It  was  the  perfect 
place  for  a  voyeur  who  had  once 
watched  his  wife  perform  fellatio  on 
another  man,  unseen  by  her— as  hap- 
pened with  Keith  Zlomsowitch.  "We 
think  he  was  watching  Nicole  through 
the  window  on  the  night  of  the  mur- 
ders, before  she  came  outside,"  said 
Moya  Rimp.  In  the  ill-lit,  eerie  space,  I 
felt  as  if  I  could  almost  hear  the  scuf- 
fling of  rubber-soled  Bruno  Magli 
shoes  and  sneakers  in  the  dirt  and  on 
the  walkway.  "This  is  where  Ron  fell," 
said  Moya.  "That's  where  Nicole  was." 
As  I  looked  at  the  scene,  remembering 
the  horrifying  photographs  shown  in 
court,  I  didn't  want  to  be  there  any- 
more, and  we  went  inside.  □ 


Crui 


ise 


(Continued  from  page  136)  It  was  a  lot 
to  handle." 

"He  wanted  the  movie  made  for  a  re- 
sponsible budget,  and  would  not  let  it 
become  a  runaway  production,"  con- 
firms Sherry  Lansing,  chairman  of  Para- 
mount Pictures.  "Tom's  performance  as 
an  actor  was  brilliant,  but  his  function 
as  a  producer  was  extraordinary."  Para- 
mount is  expecting  Cruise/Wagner  Pro- 
ductions to  become  an  industry  force 
along  the  lines  of  Imagine,  the  partner- 
ship of  director  Ron  Howard  and  pro- 
Brian  Grazer,  or  Rob  Reiner's 


Castle  Rock.  The  Cruise-Wagner  part- 
nership is  already  developing  a  whole 
roster  of  projects,  including  Pre  (Robert 
Towne's  screenplay  about  the  runner 
Steve  Prefontaine,  which  Cruise  is  pro- 
ducing) and  Criminal  Conversation,  based 
on  an  Evan  Hunter  novel.  Cruise  is  slat- 
ed to  produce  the  film  as  a  vehicle  for 
Kidman. 

Lansing  fully  expects  Cruise  to  go  the 
way  of  Mel  Gibson  and  Clint  Eastwood, 
eventually  becoming  a  major  director. 
"There's  nothing  safe  about  Tom."  she 
says,  citing  his  willingness  to  portray  a 
paraplegic  in  Born  on  the  Fourth  of  July 
and  a  bisexual  bloodsucker  in  Interview 
with  the  Vampire. 


Cameron  Crowe,  who  is  currently  di- 
recting Cruise  in  Jerry  Maguire,  a 
movie  about  a  conniving  sports  agent, 
says  that  Cruise,  unlike  any  movie  star 
he  has  ever  known,  remains  an  under- 
dog spirit.  "He  still  has  something  to 
prove  in  terms  of  people  seeing  every- 
thing he  can  do,"  says  Crowe.  "He  real- 
ly goes  for  it.  That's  what  makes  this 
guy  different— he  works  harder  and  goes 
further  than  anyone." 

It  is  not  possible  to  spend  time  with 
Cruise  without  thinking  of  Maverick, 
Top  Gun's  cocky  ace  pilot,  who  had  to 
struggle  to  win  the  respect  and  confi- 
dence of  his  peers  despite  his  obvious 
ability.    Success    came    so    swiftly    to 


VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


Cruise  that  many  people,  from  New 
York  Times  critic  Janet  Maslin  to  arm- 
chair casting  specialist  Anne  Rice  (the 
author  who  blathered  publicly  about  his 
being  cast  in  the  film  adaptation  of  her 
Interview  with  the  Vampire  saga),  have 
had  trouble  taking  him  seriously  as  a 
genuine  thespian.  Perhaps,  like  Robert 
Redford  before  him  (Cruise  may  fairly 
be  considered  the  Redford  of  his  gen- 
eration), he  hasn't  seemed  to  suffer 
enough  to  be  perceived  as  really  actorly. 
At  his  worst,  there's  a  chill  beneath  his 
charm.  But  you  don't  see  that  very  of- 
ten. He  is  cursed  with  the  talent  for 
making  everything  look  so  easy,  as 
though  he  were  always  simply  playing 
himself.  Many  people  don't  understand 
how  hard  it  is  to  appear  so  casual  and 
spontaneous  in  the  middle  of  a  multi- 
million-dollar production  where  the  po- 
lice keep  stopping  you  and  the  budget 
keeps  accelerating. 

Since  the  beginning  he  has  been 
tagged  "a  natural."  He  lucked  into  act- 
ing after  an  injury  derailed  his  high- 
school  wrestling  career.  After  nailing  the 
part  of  Nathan  Detroit  in  Guys  and 
Dolls  his  senior  year,  Cruise  hopped  a 
bus  from  New  Jersey  to  New  York,  and 
then  moved  on  to  Hollywood.  "I  was  a 
starving  actor  for  a  few  months,"  he 
tells  me  at  one  point,  flashing  a  blinding 
grin  that  eliminates  the  necessity  of  fur- 
ther explanation. 

He  doesn't  apologize  for  his  luck, 
perhaps  because  no  actor  of  his  genera- 
tion has  worked  harder  at  being  lucky 
than  he  has.  Originally  cast  in  a  small 
part  in  Taps,  he  got  the  part  of  the  trig- 
ger-happy cadet  when  another  actor 
failed  to  make  the  grade  during  the 
mock-boot-camp  rehearsals  for  the  mov- 
ie. He  succeeded  because  of  his  gung-ho 
dedication.  "He  attacked  it  that  day 
with  such  incredible  confidence  all  our 
heads  turned  around,"  recalls  Timothy 
Hutton,  who  co-starred  as  a  fellow 
cadet  and  has  been  a  friend  ever  since. 
"He  worked  incredibly  hard,  and  that 
continues  to  be  the  case.  He  approaches 
every  movie  like  it's  the  first  one." 

During  Rain  Man,  Dustin  Hoffman 
remembers,  Cruise  rose  at  4:30  a.m.  to 
work  out.  He  talks  about  Cruise's  putting 
in  long  hours  on  the  set  and  later,  as 
everyone  else  headed  off  to  watch  the 
dailies,  going  back  to  work  out  again.  Or 
starting  preparations  for  his  next  scenes. 
"He  was  like  a  machine  in  that  sense." 
says  Hoffman.  "There  is  a  joy  in  achiev- 
ing excellence.  It's  all  about  the  work." 

While  he  acts  like  the  class  cutup, 
Cruise,  according  to  directors,  is  actual- 

VANITY  FAIR/JUNE  1996 


ly  more  of  a  closet  grind.  Di- 
rector Sydney  Pollack  remem- 
bers Cruise  hovering  behind 
him  "so  he  could  eavesdrop  on 
everything  that  was  said"  dur- 
ing auditions  for  the  female 
lead  in  The  Firm.  "He  was 
working,  studying  the  direc- 
tor's role,"  says  Pollack,  who 
persuaded  Cruise  to  try  his 
hand  at  directing  an  episode  of 
Showtime's  Fallen  Angels  enti- 
tled "Frightening  Frammis." 
"He's  like  a  sponge.  But  un- 
derneath it  all  is  a  very  fierce 
determination." 

"He's  been  at  school  this  last 
decade,"  agrees  Terry  Semel, 
who  describes  meetings  on  Pre 
in  which  Cruise  showed  a  de- 
tailed command  of  everything 
from  script  problems  to  the  bud- 
get. "He  has  an  almost  childlike 
ability  to  listen  to  people,  and 
then  he  runs  it  through  his  own 
filter.  Tom  sits  in  the  room  as  a 
full  participant  but  in  a  totally  construc- 
tive, nicely  handled  way.  He's  like  a  sea- 
soned executive." 

It  is  not  easy  to  maintain  a  sense  of 
balance  in  the  center  of  the  celebrity 
whirlwind,  but  Cruise's  ability  to  tune 
out  the  aspects  he  finds  troubling  is  part 
of  what  his  friends  refer  to  as  his  amaz- 
ing focus.  "Incredibly  well-preserved  hu- 
manity" is  the  quality  that  Sean  Penn 
points  out  as  key  to  his  pal.  "I  think  it 
comes  from  inner  strength.  I  don't  know 
whether  he  attributes  it  to  Scientology  or 
not,"  Penn  says,  referring  to  Cruise's 
much-discussed  religious  affiliation.  "But 
he's  incredibly  solid.  The  core  of  who  he 
is  hasn't  changed  in  15  years." 

Cruise  says  he  learned  the  hard  way 
about  the  importance  of  having  a  life 
outside  the  limelight.  In  his  first  10 
years  in  Hollywood,  he  made  13  films 
back-to-back.  He  had  two  apartments, 
first  in  Brentwood,  then  in  Greenwich 
Village,  that  he  hardly  ever  saw.  His 
first  marriage,  to  actress  Mimi  Rogers, 
foundered,  at  least  in  part,  because  he 
was  always  working.  "It's  a  lot  of  stuff 
to  deal  with,"  says  Cruise  of  his  early 
stardom.  "In  the  beginning,  I  was  al- 
ways afraid.  'This  is  my  one  shot.  I'm 
going  to  lose  it,  so  I've  just  gotta  work, 
work,  work.'  The  first  10  years  .  .  .  that 
was  it,"  he  murmurs,  shaking  his  head 
ruefully,  "work,  work,  work. 

"And  then  I  met  Nic,  and  it  was  like 
'Oh,  my  God," "  he  announces,  watching 
me  intently  to  see  if  I   understand  the 


TO  DIE  FOR 

Tom  Cruise  and  Nicole  Kidman  at 
Vanity  Fair's  1996  Oscar  party: 
"We're  always  working  and  on  the  road, 
so  my  best  friend  is  Nic,"  he  says. 


magnitude  of  the  revelation.  "You  read 
about  people  whose  whole  life  is  just 
movies  and  it's  very  small,"  continues 
Cruise,  who  knew  the  late  producer  Don 
Simpson  from  Top  Gun  and  Days  of 
Thunder  and  was  saddened  by  his  self-de- 
structive existence.  "Your  life  feeds  your 
work,  not  the  opposite.  It's  not  about  me, 
me,  me,  me.  It's  about  the  other  person." 

During  the  worst  of  what  he  wryly 
terms  the  "international  hammering"  he 
received  before  the  release  of  Interview 
with  the  Vampire  (Anne  Rice  has  since 
apologized  for  her  role  in  the  brouhaha), 
Cruise  says,  his  wife  helped  him  keep 
his  perspective.  "Nic  makes  sure  I  don't 
go  off  into  space.  When  you're  under 
that  much  pressure,  you  have  to  be  able 
to  say,  'O.K.,  this  is  outrageous.  I'm  go- 
ing to  get  slaughtered.  But  I'm  going  to 
do  it.'" 

Cruise  calls  Kidman  "this  great  Aus- 
sie girl,"  and  seems  inordinately  proud 
of  her  career  and  success  with  To  Die 
For.  (Friends  say  any  reference  to  her 
lack  of  an  Oscar  nomination  will  send 
him  off  on  a  heated,  hour-long  tirade.) 
He  raves  about  her  performance  in  Jane 
Campion's  upcoming  Portrait  of  a  Lady, 
in  which  she  plays  Henry  James's  im- 
mortal heroine  Isabel  Archer,  but  then 
catches  himself,  saying  cautiously,  "It's 

183 


Cruise 


going  to  happen,  but  you  don't  want  to 
say  anything  that  could  jinx  it." 

Cruise  says  his  past  experience  has 
made  him  "more  committed."  He  and 
Kidman  have  never  been  separated  for 
more  than  two  weeks.  "I  go  where  she's 
going.  Or  she  goes  where  I  go,"  he  says 
resolutely.  "We're  always  working  and 
on  the  road,  so  my  best  friend  is  Nic." 
He  acknowledges  that  traveling  together 
is  more  complicated  now  that  he  and 
his  wife  have  adopted  two  children— Is- 
abella, three,  and  Connor,  one.  But  he 
maintains  that  it's  not  impossible.  "I 
went  to  15  different  schools  growing 
up,"  he  says,  a  passing  reference  to  the 
difficult  adolescence  that  followed  his 
parents'  divorce  when  he  was  12. 
Cruise,  his  mother,  and  his  three  sisters 
were  on  their  own.  "We  stuck  together 
and,  to  this  day,  are  very  close,"  he  says. 
"I  think  what's  important  is  that  kids 
see  parents  who  love  each  other." 

Cruise  admits  he  can't  imagine  what 
it  would  be  like  to  have  two  movie  stars 
as  parents,  and  knows  a  "normal"  home 
life  for  his  children  is  a  challenge.  Both 
he  and  Kidman  find  the  celebrity  cul- 
ture of  Los  Angeles  a  less  than  ideal 


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place  to  raise  a  family,  and  Cruise  says 
that  when  he  hears  "nightmare  stories" 
about  kids  carrying  beepers  and  quoting 
their  fathers'  box  office,  he's  ready  to 
pack  his  bags.  But  then  he  recounts  a 
distinctly  Hollywood  interaction  with 
his  own  daughter.  "Bella  says,  'O.K., 
Daddy,  I'm  going  to  work  now,'"  recalls 
Cruise,  "and  I  say,  'O.K.,  sweetheart.' 
And  she  goes,  'Action.'  It's  a  little 
scary,"  he  admits.  But  he's  laughing. 

"I  think  he  desperately  needed  family," 
says  Dust  in  Hoffman.  "Whether  it  was 
my  family  or  the  makeshift  family  of  the 
crew.  Now,  when  he's  playing  with  his 
kids,  I  can  see  it  in  his  eyes.  He  loves  it 
and  needs  it."  These  days.  Cruise  is  al- 
ways surrounded  by  family.  His  big  sister 
Lee  Anne  works  in  marketing  and  pub- 
licity for  his  company,  and  one  of  his 
cousins  sometimes  functions  as  his  assis- 
tant on  location.  (Another  sister  has  a 
teaching  degree  and  lives  in  Florida,  and 
the  youngest  owns  a  restaurant  in  New 
Jersey.)  Kidman  is  very  close  to  her  par- 
ents and  sister  in  Australia,  and  she  and 
Tom  recently  purchased  a  town  house  in 
Sydney  where  they  can  stay  during  ex- 
tended visits. 

Given  everything.  Cruise  and  Kidman 
keep  a  very  low  profile.  They  live  in  a 
big,  comfortable  house  near  the  Pal- 
isades, in  a  residential  neighborhood  that 
doesn't  attract  many  movie  stars.  Their 
one  real  movie-star  indulgence  is  a  very 
private  mountaintop  retreat  in  Vail,  Col- 
orado, the  home  away  from  home  of  an 
increasing  number  of  industry  heavy- 
weights. There  the  couple  socializes  in  a 
close  circle  of  friends,  including  actor 
Emilio  Estevez  (one  of  Cruise's  best 
friends  since  the  time  when  Estevez's 
parents— actor  Martin  Sheen  and  his 
wife,  Janet— put  the  briefly  unemployed 
actor  up  at  their  home).  Terry  and  Jane 
Semel  and  director  Rob  Reiner  and  his 
wife,  Michele,  complete  the  circle. 

Cruise  is  clearly  on  top  of  the  world 
right  now,  and  friends  say  they  have 
never  seen  him  as  happy.  He  concedes 
that  it  is  "a  good  time,"  but  keeps  his 
natural  ebullience  in  check,  admitting 
that  when  things  seem  to  be  going  per- 
fectly something  always  appears  in  the 
tabloids  that  casts  a  shadow  on  his  life. 
The  worst,  he  says,  was  a  cover  story  last 
year  on  Kidman  in  McCall's.  The  story 
quoted  an  anonymous  source  as  saying 
that  Kidman  married  Cruise,  who  has  de- 
nied rumors  that  he  is  secretly  homosexu- 
al, only  to  "squelch  the  gay  stuff."  and  al- 
leged that  in  return  CAA  "would  make 
her  a  movie  star."  The  magazine  pub- 


lished a  complete  retraction,  but  Cruise 
says  it  was  very  hurtful.  "I  feel  very  an- 
gry about  it,"  he  says.  "I  just  try  to  re- 
mind Nicole,  it's  like  a  mantra— 'You 
have  me,  you  have  the  kids,  it  doesn't 
matter  what  anyone  else  thinks.'  I  know 
it's  all  part  of  it.  But  sometimes,  when 
it's  beyond  what  anyone  ..."  he  says, 
his  voice  trailing  off.  "It's  hard." 

His  eyes  take  on  a  mischievous  glint 
again  as  he  starts  to  explain  that  the 
Kubrick  film,  in  which  both  he  and  Kid- 
man will  star,  features  an  obsessive  rela- 
tionship. "Yeah,  Nic's  sexual  obsession 
and  jealousy,"  he  says,  rubbing  his 
hands  together  in  imitation  of  J.  J.  Hun- 
secker,  the  scandalmongering  Walter 
Winchell  character  in  Sweet  Smell  of 
Success.  "I  know  it's  going  to  stir  it  up  a 
bit,"  he  says  wickedly. 

It's  a  foggy  Sunday  morning,  and  I'm 
watching  planes  take  off  and  land 
from  DC-3,  the  second-story  restaurant 
overlooking  the  Santa  Monica  airport.  I 
am  supposed  to  be  meeting  Cruise  and 
Kidman  for  brunch  and  a  joint  inter- 
view, their  first.  At  1 1  on  the  dot,  the  ac- 
tor pulls  up  in  a  mammoth  black  Dis- 
covery jeep.  He  asks  if  I  would  mind 
terribly  if  he  kept  one  eye  on  the  basket- 
ball game  while  we  chat.  I  tell  him  I 
don't— it's  a  masculine  form  of  conver- 
sation I'm  all  too  familiar  with. 

Looking  pleased,  he  heads  straight 
into  the  darkened  bar,  where  he  politely 
requests  that  the  television  be  tuned  to 
the  N.C.A.A.  championships.  (Cruise 
has  money  on  Kentucky's  going  to  the 
finals.)  We  find  a  booth  nearby,  and  he 
cranes  his  neck  around  to  see  what  kind 
of  view  he  has  of  the  screen.  He  ex- 
plains that  Kidman  is  getting  the  kids 
organized  for  an  afternoon  hike  and  will 
be  along  shortly. 

We've  been  talking  basketball  for 
what  seems  like  an  awfully  long  time 
when  a  waiter  drifts  by  with  a  tray  of  mi- 
mosas. Cruise  passes  on  the  champagne 
cocktail,  explaining  that  he  plays  in  an 
amateur  hockey  league  Sunday  nights 
and  has  to  be  in  top  form  or  he'll  get 
creamed.  "I  just  ask  them  to  stay  away 
from  my  face,"  he  says,  rubbing  his  jaw. 
"I  say,  'Guys,  I've  got  to  be  able  to  go  in 
front  of  the  cameras  in  the  morning.' " 

Kidman  arrives  20  minutes  later, 
looking  slightly  harried,  with  her  tum- 
bling mane  of  red  curls  pulled  back  into 
a  hasty  braid.  Seeing  Cruise  sneak  a 
look  at  the  TV,  she  bursts  out,  "Thomas, 
how  rude!" 

He  goes  back  to  the  game. 

Dressed  alike  in  jeans  and  sweaters, 


VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


■  I 


they  look  so  regular  that  you  would  never 
suspect  them  of  being  famous  (that  is,  if 
it  weren't  for  the  way  the  waiter's  hand 
shakes  when  he  brings  the  scrambled 
eggs).  As  they  talk,  they  seem  like  any 
other  young  couple  on  their  way  up,  dis- 
cussing their  careers  and  trading  stories 
about  the  funny  situations  they  often  find 
themselves  in.  Kidman  reminds  him  of  a 
weekend  they  spent  together  last  fall, 
when  he  was  finishing  Mission:  Impossible 
in  London  and  she  was  still  shooting  Por- 
trait of  a  Lady  in  Salisbury. 

"We  were  staying  in  this  tiny  little  bed- 
and-breakfast  with  the  rest  of  the  actors," 
she  says,  "and  you  could  hear  everybody 
through  the  walls." 

"All  the  guys,"  he  confirms. 

"Well,  it  was  really  fun,"  she  insists. 

"It  was  romantic,"  he  concedes. 

"Whispering  so  that  people  wouldn't 
hear  you  because  the  walls  were  so  thin," 
she  says,  giggling.  "That's  the  good  stuff." 

Their  policy  is  that  whoever  is  working 
is  granted  the  privilege  of  indulging  in 
movie-star  behavior,  but  not  both  of  them 
at  the  same  time.  "It's  the  balance,"  she 
says.  "You  are  not  allowed  to  be  the  one 
to  freak  out  if  you  are  not  working.  If 
you  are  working,  then  you  are  allowed  to 
be  hysterical,  anything,  the  whole  roller 
coaster  of  emotions." 

"It  was  like  that  last  month  when  you 
were  shooting,"  he  says  somewhat  dryly. 

"Right,"  she  laughs.  "And  you  had  to 
be  the  comrade." 

"What's  the  score  here?"  he  asks,  turn- 
ing back  to  the  game. 

When  it's  time  to  go,  Cruise,  ever  the 
gentleman,  offers  to  treat.  He  tells  me  that 
Kidman  is  the  first  woman  he  ever  dated 
who  insisted  on  going  Dutch.  "When  I 
took  her  out,  I  paid  for  the  movie  and  she 
paid  for  the  popcorn,"  he  says. 

"The  independent  type,"  I  observe. 

"Very  independent,"  he  says. 

"Well,  before  Tom,  I  always  dated 
guys  that  just  earned  nothing,"  she  says, 
"absolutely  zero.  So  I  had  to  pay  or  we 
didn't  eat." 

"Hey,  I  don't  want  to  hear  about  this," 
Cruise  protests.  Glancing  at  the  total  on 
the  check,  he  turns  and  with  perfect  tim- 
ing says,  "Thirty  bucks!  What  did  you  do. 
honey,  order  the  crab?"  □ 


Credits 


fashion 

Cover:  Tom  Cruise's  Polo  by  Ralph  Lauren 
shirt  and   pants  and    Polo   by   Ralph    Lauren 
Gentleman's  Underwear  tank  top  from  Polo 
Ralph    Lauren,    N.Y.C.;    Prada    shoes    from 
Bergdorf  Goodman,  NYC. 
Page  12:  Shoes  by  Joop,  from  Breuninger, 
Stuttgart,  Germany;  for  additional  information, 
see  credits  for  page  133. 
Page    16:   Rene  Russo's  dress  by  Donald 
Deal,  from   Bergdorf  Goodman,  NYC;  ring 
by  Cartier,  from  Cartier  Inc.,  NYC. 
Page  109:  Alexandra  Nechita's  Ralph  Lau- 
ren shirt  and  pants  from  Nordstrom,  LA,  Karin 
Labby  for  Celestine. 

Page  133:  Tom  Cruise's  Wannabe  Patrick 
Cox  suit  from  Patrick  Cox,  NYC;  Thierry 
Mugler  sweater  from  Saks  Fifth  Avenue,  NYC 
Page  135:  Costume  Homme  suit  from  select- 
ed Barneys  New  York  stores;  Agnes  B.  shirt 
from  Agnes  B.,  NYC;  New  York  tie  from 
MAC,  San  Francisco,  Gucci  shoes  from 
Gucci  stores  nationwide;  Oakley  sunglasses 
from  Oakley  dealers  nationwide. 
Page  137:  Helmut  Lang  suit  from  Bagutta, 
NYC;  Polo  by  Ralph  Lauren  shirt  from  Polo 
Ralph  Lauren,  NYC;  New  York  tie  from 
MAC,  San  Francisco;  Giorgio  Armani  gloves 
from  Giorgio  Armani,  NYC;  Prada  shoes 
from  Prada,  Bal  Harbour,  Florida. 

Beauty  and  Crowning 

Cover:  All  grooming  pioducts  from  Clinique 
Skin  Supplies  for  Men;  Sally  Hershberger  for 
Profile;  Lucienne  Zammit  for  Cloutier. 
Page  16:  See  credits  for  page  131. 
Page  109:  Alexandra  Nechita's  hair  styled 
with  Matrix  Essentials  Vavoom  Professional  Styling 
Spray.  All  makeup  from  Clarins.  On  her  eyes, 
Eye  Colour  Duo  No.  25  in  Natural/Clay,  on 
her  lips,  Sheer  Lipstick  No.  101  in  Peach. 
Page    131:   Rene  Russo's  hair   styled   with 
Nexxus  Exxtra  Gel.  All  makeup  from  Lancome. 
On    her    eyes,    Maquiriche    CremePowder 
EyeColour  Trio  in  Les  Bleus  Sensationnels;  on 
her    lips,    Rouge    Sensation    Multi-Sensation 
LipColour    in    Terra    Rose.    Enzo    Angileri    for 
Cloutier;  Kareen  Boursier  for  HMS  Bookings 
Page  154:  Juan  Carlos  for  the  TWA.  Agency. 

Photographs  and  Miscellany 

Page  44:  Insets,  top,  from  Sygma;  bottom, 

from  JB  Pictures. 

Page  46:  From  Sygma 

Page  52:  Top,  from  Sygma;   bottom,  from 

Gamma  Liaison. 


Page  64:  From  A.P./Wide  World  Photos. 
Page  66:  Bottom,  from  Sygma. 
Page  70:  All  courtesy  of  Scab  Publishers. 
Page  72:  From  Archive  Photos. 
Page  74:  Top,  from  Gamma  Liaison;  bottom, 
from  the  United  States  Holocaust  Memorial 
Museum. 

Page  94:  Top,  from  Shooting  Star;  inset,  from 
Garnma  Liaison. 

Page  96:  Bottom,  from  Photofest. 
Page   101:  Left,  from   Movie  Still  Archive, 
second  from  left,  from  the  Everett  Collection; 
third  from  left,  from  Photofest. 
Page  102:  Top  right,  from  U.P.I  /Bettmann. 
Page  107:  From  Visages. 
Page     1 10:    Top,    second    from    right,    by 
John  Foraste/Courtesy  of  Brown  University; 
right,    by    John    Paschal/Celebrity    Photo 
Agency.  Bottom,  top,  by  Timothy  Greenfield- 
Sanders. 

Page  131:  Props  styled  by  David  Ross;  pro- 
duced by  Victoria  Brynner  for  Stardust  Visions. 
Page  141:  Clockwise  from  top,  by  Martin 
Simon/Saba,  Steve  Keesee/The  Arkansas  Dem- 
ocrat-Gazette /Sipa  Press,  Joseph  A.  Silverman/ 
The  Washington  Times. 

Pages  146-47:  Left  and  right,  by  Fred  Prou- 
ser/Sipa  Press;  center,  by  Tami  L.  Chappell/ 
Sipa  Press. 

Page  149:  Both  from  A  P/Wide  World  Photos. 
Page  151:  Top,  from  A.P./Wide  World 
Photos;  bottom,  from  the  L.A.  Doily  News/ 
Sygma. 

Page  153:  From  the  L.A.  Daily  News/Sygma. 
Page  160:  From  NY  Daily  News  Photo. 
Page  161:  From  the  collection  of  Peter  Duchin. 
Pages  162-63:  Top  row,  left  to  right,  from 
Sotheby's,  London;  from  the  Lester  Glassner 
Collection/Neal  Peters;  courtesy  of  The 
American  Assembly,  Columbia  University. 
Center  row,  left,  from  Photofest;  second  and 
third  from  left,  from  the  collection  of  Peter 
Duchin.  Bottom  row,  all  from  the  collection  of 
Peter  Duchin. 

Page  165:  Large  photograph  from  the  col- 
lection of  Peter  Duchin;  inset  from  Photofest. 
Page   166:  Courtesy  of  Vogue,  ©    1963 
(renewed   1991)  by  the  Conde  Nast  Publica- 
tions Inc. 

Page  168:  Left,  from  U.P.I /Bettmann. 
Page  169:  Both  from  A.P./Wide  World  Photos 


Correction:  Because  of  incorrect  information 
supplied  by  Archive  Photos,  in  the  photograph 
on  page  134  of  the  April  issue  ("Odets's  Inner 
Eye,"  by  J  Hoberman)  the  man  on  the  left  was 
misidentified.  He  is  Lee  Strasberg. 


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VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


185 


"^tt&r 


Which  words  or  phrases  do  you  most  overuse? 

I.  Me,  Chaos.  Fuck,  Me,  Interactive,  Memory  Loss, 
Victimhood,  Fuck.  Well,  let's  talk  about  this  later. 

What  or  who  is  the  greatest  love  of  your  life? 

My  wife  (at  the  time). 

Which  living  person  do  you  most  admire? 

Yoko  Ono.  so  far. 

Which  living  person  do  you  most  despise? 

Me!  Myself!  Me!  Hey.  I  spend  around  10  minutes 
every  morning  in  bed  reviewing  the  despicable 
misdeeds  committed  yesterday.  "[You]  didn't  listen." 
"[You]  talked  too  much."  "[You  were]  boorish, 
arrogant,  self-indulgent."  "Just  a  Senile  Sunset  Stripper, 
a  Geriatric  Party  Animal.  A  fringe  celebrity  in 
this  bizarre  village  of  stellar  talent." 

Which  historical  figure  do  you  most  identify  with? 

Socrates.  Voltaire.  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.  Henry  David 
Thoreau,  Yoko  Ono. 

Who  is  your  favorite  hero  of  fiction? 

Huck  Finn.  Susan  Sarandon.  and  me.  So  far. 


Professorial  LSD  advocate  and  all- 
purpose  pan-decade  celebrity, 
Timothy  Leary  has  long  been  attuned  to 
the  nation's  good  vibes.  Now,  at  75, 
he  is  the  self-proclaimed  C.E.O.  of 
Cyber-Tech,  and  this  month  he  flames 
V.F.  s  Proust  Questionnaire 


What  do  you  consider  your  greatest  achievement? 

Joyfully  engineering  and  channeling 

and  surfing  the  last  four  Cultural  Revolutions 

(Jazz.  Acid.  Punk.  Cyber-Tech). 

Which  talent  would  you  most  like  to  have? 

More  time  more  time.  To  learn  to  play  the  blues. 

What  is  your  most  marked  characteristic? 

Aesthetically  precise,  arrogant  Communicator. 

What  is  your  favorite  occupation? 

Babbling  and  goofing  silly  aesthetic  pals. 

What  do  you  consider  the  moc  rated  v'rtue? 

All  virtues  are  overrated. 

186 


Who  are  your  heroes  in  real  life? 

Prometheus.  Thomas  Edison,  Barbara  Fouch, 

John  Roseboro.  Marshall  McLuhan.  Margaret  Fuller, 

Susan  Sarandon,  and  Yoko  Ono.  So  far. 

Who  are  your  favorite  writers? 

Mark  Twain.  Voltaire.  Brenda  Laurel. 

James  Joyce.  Thomas  Pynchon.  Gertrude  Stein, 

William  Gibson.  Yoko  Ono,  and  me. 

How  would  you  like  to  die? 

At  the  moment  when  my  Quality  of  Life  Index  falls 
below  the  tolerable.  I  plan  to  De-Animate— i.e..  to  snuff  my 
body.  Me  and  my  friends  are  planning  the  happiest, 
joyable.  organically  sensitive  Dying  Celebrations  in  human 
history.  The  preparations  for  my  Sui-Cide  have  already 
begun.  Every  stage  in  the  process  is  being  filmed  and  some 
of  it  will  be  broadcast  on  the  World  Wide  Web. 
I  hope  that  millions  of  people  will  be  on-line  during  the 
last  stages  of  my  celebratory  good-bye  party. 

If  you  were  to  die  and  come  back  as  a  person  or  thing, 
what  do  you  think  it  would  be? 

A  beautiful,  smart,  brave,  funny  Asian  woman. 

If  you  could  choose  what  to  come  back  as,  what  would  it  be? 

Me,  as  a  hip  21st-century  media  wizard.  With  Her,  of  course. 

What  is  your  motto? 

Dial  On.  Tune  In.  Hang  Out.  Link  Up.  Escape-Delete. 

VANITY  FAIR /JUNE  1996 


t\     JrluCr 


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\  I r\d     vour     ow*\    ro^d. 


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LA  COTE  h 
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±m 


YFAIR 


N°  431 


July  1996 


Features 

NIGHT  &  DAY 

From  chess  to  fashion  to  photography, 

Christopher  Hitchens  walks  the  fine  line  between 

black  and  white  for  a  study  in  contrasts 72 

CAGED  HEAT 

While  Cathy  Horyn  explores  his  Gothic  Hollywood 

Hills  castle,  Nicolas  Cage  reveals  how  his  best-actor  Oscar, 

marriage  to  Patricia  Arquette,  and  three  upcoming 

action  films— including  this  month's  Tlie  Rock— have  changed 

his  outlaw  ways.  Photographs  by  Annie  Leibovitz 74 

THE  DOOMSDAY  MAN 

From  atop  a  sprawling,  tax-exempt  empire  whose  crown 

jewel  is  the  Christian  Coalition,  televangelist  Pat  Robertson 

wields  enormous  political  power— even  as  he  warns 

that  the  world  will  end  in  four  years.  William  Prochnau 

and  Laura  Parker  investigate  the  prophet  motive. 

Illustration  by  Philip  Burke 82 

ROCKIN'  ROBIN 

Herb  Ritts  and  Kevin  Sessums  spotlight 

Robin  Wright,  who  has  a  new  film,  Moll  Flanders, 

and  a  new  husband,  Sean  Penn 88 

SKYSCRAPER  COUTURE 

Philip  Johnson,  I.  M.  Pei,  Richard  Meier,  and  other 

great  architects  of  the  age  model  their  landmark  buildings 

as  Matthew  Tyrnauer  compares  them  with  the 

skyline  creators  of  yesteryear.  Portfolio  by  Josef  Astor 90 

NATURAL  BORN  OPPONENTS 

Oliver  Stone's  Natural  Born  Killers  has  been  linked 

to  more  copycat  killings  than  any  other  film. 

Now,  Michael  Shnayerson  reports,  lawyer  and  best-selling 

author  John  Grisham  is  trying  to  hold  Stone  accountable 

for  the  slaying  of  a  friend.  Photographs  by  Jonathan  Becker  ...  98 

ALL  THAT  JAZZ 

David  Kamp  lifts  a  martini  to  the  dapper  style  of 

Rolling  Stones  drummer  Charlie  Watts,  whose  jazz  band 

is  on  its  fourth-album  tour.  Portrait  by  Albert  Watson 106 

A  SEASON  IN  PARADISE 

Judy  Bachrach  discovers  that  film's  newest  wave 

swirls  around  the  beauty  of  Tuscany,  as  Bernardo  Bertolucci, 

Jane  Campion,  Jeremy  Irons,  Liv  Tyler,  and 

Juliette  Binoche  take  to  the  hills  that  inspired  Shelley. 

Photographs  by  Brigitte  Lacombe 108 

(Continued  on  page  10) 


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(Continued  from  page  8) 


MANHATTAN  '37 

From  Amelia  Earhart's  Fifth  Avenue  flight  plan  to 

the  city-sanctioned  chaos  of  Mob  Day,  Bruce  McCall  paints 

a  wildly  improbable  picture  of  late  1930s  New  York 116 

A  NIGHT  TO  REMEMBER 

Truman  Capote's  1966  Black  and  White  Ball  drew 

a  dazzling  and  unprecedented  mix  of  the  social,  fashion,  art, 

literary,  political,  and  Hollywood  elites.  Three 

decades  later,  Amy  Fine  Collins  recalls  the  masked  hysteria 

surrounding  the  party  of  the  century 120 

Columns 

HAVANAS  IN  CAMELOT 

With  J.F.K.'s  humidor  fetching  more  than  half  a  million 

dollars  at  the  Jackie  O  auction,  William  Styron 

treasures  a  few  shining,  smoke-filled  presidential  moments 32 

THE  BIRTH  OF  PUNK 

In  an  excerpt  from  their  oral  history.  Please  Kill  Me, 

Legs  McNeil  and  Gillian  McCain  debrief  Malcolm  McLaren, 

Debbie  Harry,  and  others  of  the  punk  vanguard 44 

FLASHBACK 

Richard  Merkin  remembers  when  Toots  Shor's  gin  mill 

was  the  most  exclusive  boys'  club  in  town 57 

THE  RAPE  OF  THE  FROCK 

Henry  Porter  turns  poetic  force  on  matters  of  a  royal  divorce; 
Queen  Elizabeth,  Princess  Di— none  escapes  his  watchful  eye  ...  61 

Vanities 

ANNE  HECHE  NOW 

Cocktail  Nation;  David  Seidner— an  American  in  Paris; 

Scots  on  the  rocks  in  Trainspotting;  George  Wayne 

duets  with  Burt  Bacharach;  V.F.  Camera  goes  to  Washington  ...  65 

Et  Cetera 

EDITOR'S  LETTER:  Black  and  white  and  read  all  over 14 

CONTRIBUTORS 16 

LETTERS:  Death  of  a  son 24 

CREDITS 153 

PLANETARIUM:  Real  life  is  a  fantasy,  Cancer 154 

SOCIAL  STUDY:  Quincy  Jones  produces  his  Proust  Questionnaire .  .  156 

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Contributors 


William  Styron,  who  now  enjoys  cigars  only  on 

occasion,  is  smoking  a  Cohiba  from  a  box  given  to  him  by  his  friend 

Gabriel  Garcia  Mdrquez,  who  himself  received  it 

as  a  gift  from  Fidel  Castro.  On  page  32,  Styron  fondly  remembers 

the  education  he  received  from  President  John  F.  Kennedy 

on  appreciating  Cuban  cigars.  Part  of  Styron' s  best-selling  memoir, 

Darkness  Visible,  was  first  published  as  an  essay 

in  the  December  1989  issue  o/V.F. 


At  age  19,  writer-enfant  terrible  Legs 
McNeil  named  a  generation  of  mu- 
sic, coining  the  term  "punk"  when  he 
co-founded  the  now  defunct  Punk 
magazine  in  1975.  McNeil  and  Gillian 
McCain  have  written  Please  Kill  Me: 
Tlie  Uncensored  Oral  History  of  Punk, 
excerpted  in  this  issue  and  due  out 
from  Grove  this  month.  Also  this 
month,  McCain  will  publish  Tilt  (the 
Figures),  a  collection  of  prose  poems. 


London  editor  Henry  Porter  has  composed 

a  poem  in  mock-heroic  couplets 
about  the  Princess  of  Wales,  which  appears 

on  page  61.  "  Writing  this  was 

all-consuming,"  Porter  says.  "You  suddenly 

see  a  name  of  a  supermarket  or 

a  BMW  and  wonder  what  words  you 

can  rhyme  it  with." 


Contributing  editor  Cathy  Horyn 
found  her  cover  subject,  Nicolas 
Cage,  to  be  a  courtly  and  knowl- 
edgeable gentleman.  "He  knows 
about  everything  from  etymology  to 
model  trains;  he  has  a  photograph- 
ic memory  and  an  incredible  ear 
for  music.  People  are  surprised 
at  how  articulate  he  is,  but  they 
shouldn't  be." 

Living  in  Italy  for  four  and  a  half 
years  left  contributing  editor  Judy 
Bachrach  with  an  understanding  of 
Tuscany's  allure;  this  month  she 
provides  the  text  for  Brigitte  La- 
combe's  photographs  of  the  film  in- 
dustry's love  affair  with  the  country- 
side around  Florence. 

Contributing  editor  Richard  Merkin 

is  working  with  Bobby  Short  on  a 
book  tentatively  titled  /  Like  the 
Likes  of  You:  A  Bobby  Short  Family 
Album. 

"John  Grisham's  conviction  that 
Natural  Born  Killers  spawned  copy- 
cat murders  and  Oliver  Stone's  indig- 
nant reply  dramatize  complex  legal 
and  ethical  issues,"  says  contribut- 
ing editor  Michael  Shnayerson  of 
his  article  in  this  issue. 

(Continued  on  page  18) 


VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


After  a  grueling  day  of  defending  the  earth  from  piracy,  greed  and  cruelty, 

I  just  can't  wait  to  get  home,  kick  back,  and  pour  myself  a  drink.  Of  milk,  that  is. 

With  nine  essential  nutrients  that  help  make  me  strong,  like  protein,  calcium 

and  vitamin  D,  it's  the  beverage  of  choice  for  most  superheroes. 


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Through  the 
Grapevine 


Join  Clarins,  Mitsubishi,  and  TAG 

Heuer  at  the  10th  annual  Wine 

Country  Film  Festival,  taking  place 

July  18  -August  11. 

During  the  first  weekend  of  the 

festival,  receive  a  complimentary 

hand  massage  and  product  samples 

from  Clarins,  test  drive  a  sporty 

new  Mitsubishi  Eclipse  Spyder 

Convertible,  and  pick  up  your 

official  TAG  Heuer  screening 

schedule  card. 

More  than  50  films  will  be  presented 
at  the  festival,  many  al  fresco  in  the 

glorious  California  wine  country 

outside  San  Francisco.  The  festival 

begins  at  the  Rutherford  Hill  Winery 

in  Napa  Valley  and  concludes  at  the 

Viansa  Winery  in  Sonoma  Valley. 

For  program,  ticket,  and  travel 
information,  call  707-935-3456. 


From  the 
Speedway  to 

the  Runway 


Vanity  Fair  and  DKNY  invite 
you  to  a  Menswear  Fashion  Show. 
Christian  Fittipaldi,  driver  of  the 
1996  Newman/Haas  Racing  team, 
will  make  a  personal  appearance. 
After  the  show,  Christian  will  be 
available  for  autograp;  s. 

The  fashion  shov»      id  myograph 

signing  will  take  plac e      i  June  19, 

1996  at  6:00  PM  at  Nordstrom, 

701  SW  Broadway,  Po  sgon. 

You'll  receive  a  special  gift  .         n, 

DKNY  Men's  purchase. 

Christian's  car  will  be  on  display 

at  Nordstrom  from  June  17  to  22. 

RSVP:  1-800-268-3247 


(Continued  from  page  16) 


"Manhattan  37,"  on  page  116, 

marks  writer-illustrator  Bruce  McCall's 

second  appearance  in  Vanity  Fair, 

following  his  "Hollywood  37"  in  the  April 

issue.  He  has  recently  finished  a 

memoir  about  growing  up  Canadian,  to  be 

published  by  Random  House. 


William  Prochnau  and  his  wife,  jour- 
nalist Laura  Parker,  profile  Pat 
Robertson  in  this  issue.  Prochnau's 
book  Once  upon  a  Distant  War  (Times 
Books),  about  the  first  war  corre- 
spondents in  Vietnam,  was  excerpted 
in  the  November  1995  issue  of  V.F 
Parker,  on  leave  from  the  Washington 
bureau  of  Tfie  Detroit  News,  is  a  1996 
Alicia  Patterson  Fellow,  writing  about 
the  impact  of  illiteracy  on  a  small 
southern  town. 


On  page  90,  Josef  Astor  photographs 

't  i,  Philip  Johnson,  and  other  leading 

architects  as  human  representations 

of  their  most  famous  structures.  The  portfolio 

is  Astor' s  update  of  the  famous 

3eaux-Arts  ball  Photograph,  in  which 

the  creators  of  t).     Hew  York 

turned  as  their  buildings. 


The  Association  for  Education  in 
Journalism  and  Mass  Communica- 
tion has  honored  contributing  editor 
Christopher  Hitchens  with  its  1996 
award  for  "Professional  Freedom  and 
Responsibility."  "I  have  written  back," 
Hitchens  says,  "to  ask,  May  I  accept  the 
freedom  and  decline  the  responsibility?" 

John  Brodie  is  a  reporter  at  Variety 
and  a  contributing  writer  at  GQ.  His 
summer  cocktail  of  choice  is  a  Dark 
and  Stormy,  composed  mainly  of 
Mount  Gay  rum,  ginger  beer,  and  a 
sprig  of  mint. 


Contributing  editor  Amy  Fine  Collins 

looks  back  on  page  120 
at  Truman  Capote's  legendary  1966 

Black  and  White  Ball, 

which  she  describes  as  "a  gathering  of 

the  political,  financial,  social, 

literary,  and  intellectual  establishments. 

It  took  place  at  the  cusp 

between  the  glamorous  go-go  years  of 

the  60s  and  the  era  when  the 
fabric  of  society  began  unraveling." 


Contributing  editor  David  Kamp  ad- 
mires the  understated  style  of  Rolling 
Stone  drummer  turned  jazz  musi- 
cian Charlie  Watts,  and  says  his  taste 
in  rock  stars  has  always  run  to  the 
quiet  ones:  "George  in  the  Beatles, 
Entwhistle  in  the  Who,  and,  latterly, 
Bonehead  in  Oasis." 

Senior  editor  Matthew  Tyrnauer,  who 

went  on  the  presidential-campaign 
trail  for  the  May  issue  of  V.F.,  high- 
lights the  premier  architects  of  the 
late  20th  century  for  this  month's 
portfolio  by  Josef  Astor. 

VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


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iniflODUcine  vhcdtioiis  ■ 

DEldED  FOR  PEOPLE 

IUHO  M  FDfl 


Welcome  to  La  Costa. 

Where  the  best  the 

world  has  to  offer  is 

wrapped  in  one  beautiful 

package.  It  includes: 

18  Holes  of  Golf  Daily 

One  Hoar  Spa 
Service  Daily  with 
■^    Unlimited  Use  of 
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/    Tennis  Lessons, 
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Tennis  Court  Time 

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rt  Opa      ■ 

^  LA  COSTA 

mamm  resort  and  spa 

UJORIO  CLRSS  BUT  ROT  ft'UIDRLO  HUJRV 

B00-B5HBQ0 

OB  CHI!  VOIIfl  Wm. .  MFfSSIITOHl 

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weekday  night,  i)  ,kcn.> rale.'  X' 

Two    night    minimum.    Tax,    grain/, 

included  Call  for  pack.   , 

available.  Sub/eft  to  m'aHabilily. 

able  to  group,'.  Offer  w IS' \  through         -i/'i 


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Editor  in  Chief  GRAYDON  CARTER 

Managing  Editor  chris  garrett    Art  Director  david  Harris 

Executive  Literary  Editor  wayne  lawson    Executive  Editor  elise  oshaughnessy 

Features  Editor  jane  sarkin 

Senior  Articles  Editors  george  hodgman,  douglas  stumpf 

Legal  Affairs  Editor  robert  walsh    Senior  Editors  aimee  bell,  matthew  tyrnauer 

Editor-at-Large  Hamilton  south 

Fashion  Director  Elizabeth  saltzman    Photography  Director  susan  white 

Special  Correspondents  dominick  dunne.  bob  colacello.  Maureen  orth.  bryan  burrough 

Writer-at-Large  marie  brenner 

Special  Projects  Editor  reinaldo  herrera    Consultant  Style  Editor  andre  leon  talley 

London  Editor  henry  porter    Washington  Editor  dee  dee  myers    West  Coast  Editor  krista  smith 

Assistant  Managing  Editor  ann  powell    Deputy  Art  Director  Gregory  mastrianni 

Associate  Editors  e  e  osborne.  susan  kittenplan 

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Production  Director  ellen  kiell 

Research  Editor  Patricia  j  singer    Deputy  Research  Editor  john  banta 

Research  Associates  james  buss,  peter  d.  hyman.  john  kearney,  thomas  roston 

Assistant  to  the  Editor  in  Chief  liz  welch    Editorial  Business  Manager  mersini  stratakos 

Market  Editors  tina  skouras.  mary  f  braeunig    Designer  mimi  dutta    Art  Assistant  john  ddcon 

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Editonal  Assistants  kelly  biren.  darryl  brantley,  jessica  kaminsky, 

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Contributing  Editors  judy  bachrach.  ann  louise  bardach.  Leslie  bennetts.  Howard  blum. 

JULIE  BURCHILL.  ANDREW  COCKBURN.  LESLIE  COCKBURN.  AMY  FINE  COLLINS.  NANCY  COLLINS.  JENNET  CONANT, 

BEATRICE  MONTI  DELLA  CORTE.  RUPERT  EVERETT.  BRUCE  FEIRSTEIN.  STEPHEN  FRIED. 

LLO\  D  GROVE.  DAVID  HALBERSTAM.  EDWARD  W.  HAYES.  CHRISTOPHER  HITCHENS.  CATHY  HORYN.  LAURA  JACOBS, 

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Fashion  Director  caryn  j  martin    Jewelry/Watch  Director  linda  s.  kloner 

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Vanity  Fair  is  published  by  The  Conde  Nast  Publications  Inc.. 

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Executive  Vice  Presidents  Joseph  l.  fuchs.  Pamela  m.  van  zandt  jack  kliger.  Charles  h.  townsend 

Executive  Vice  President-Chief  Financial  Officer  eric  C  ANDERSON 

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President-Asia-Pacific  DIDIER  guerin 


Editorial  Director  JAMES  TRUMAN 


I 


22 


VANITY  FAIR /JULY  199d 


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ORB  S"   ELLIPSE     COMBO 


I  N  L   R  T  I  A" 


DEATH  OF  A  SON 


Thank   you   for   Gloria   Vanderbilfs 
story  ["A  Mother's  Tale,"  May].  We 
survivors  of  a  child's  suicide  are  a 
family  indeed.  It  is  a  lifelong  test. 

VIRGINIA  ALBERT 

Falmouth,  Virginia 

"A  Mother's  Tale"  made  me  feel  emo- 
tions I've  kept  inside  since  my  brother's 
suicide  10  years  ago.  Ms.  Vanderbilt 
speaks  of  being  in  a  glass  bubble,  a  feel- 
ing I've  had  also  since  birth.  I  wish  my 
hands  could  hold  Ms.  Vanderbilt's  for  a 
moment  to  let  her  know  that  she  is  not 
alone,  that  her  pain  is  shared  and  under- 
stood. A  woman  I  will  probably  never 
meet  has  touched  my  life  with  her  story, 
a  story  of  loss  which  echoes  my  own. 
Ms.  Vanderbilt,  I  will  try  to  work  my 
way  out  of  my  bubble  in  memory  of 
your  son  and  my  brother. 

<H  HOLASCORR1N 
Whittier,  California 

Gloria  Vanderbilt  shows  us  the  depth  of 
grief  that  a  mother  can  have  at  the  loss 
of  a  child— a  grief  that  transcends  class 
and  wealth.  It  seems  that  some  people 
are  under  the  impression  that  money 
buffers  this  kind  of  pain.  Ms.  Vane  Tbilt 
shows  us  that  there  is  no 
grief,  unless  it  is  a  very  prin     dial  one. 

.1!  I  !    --I  RAW 
Oakland.  ( 


When  I  began  reading  Gloria  Vander- 
bilt's account  of  her  son's  death,  my 
first  reaction  was  one  of  "yet  another 
poor-little-rich-girl  story  of  tragedy." 
But  as  she  unfolded  the  horror  and 
strange  occurrences  surrounding  his  sui- 
cide, I  realized  that  the  "haves"  and  the 
"have-nots"  share  at  least  two  things— 
the  sense  of  overwhelming  grief  over 
the  loss  of  a  child  and  the  ability  to  sur- 
vive it. 

Having  survived  aids  for  more  than 
six  years  now,  I  would  be  lying  if  I  said 
that  I  had  not  thought  of  ending  my  life 
on  more  than  one  occasion. 

I  know  now  that  I  could  never  end 
my  life.  Regardless  of  the  pain  and  un- 
certainty that  may  lie  ahead,  I  could 
never  leave  my  family  with  the  doubts 
and  unanswered  questions  Ms.  Vander- 
bilt is  facing.  Her  honesty  and  willing- 
ness to  share  with  the  public  one  of  the 
most  tragic  and  private  things  a  family 
can  experience  has  saved  one  life. 

JOHN  HOLLISTER 
Washington,  DC. 


Scaling  Mount  Olympus 

Annie  Leibovitz's  photographs  of  "The 
New  Olympians"  ["Let  the  Games  Be- 
gin ..."  May]  were  absolutely  stunning. 


What  a  gift  to  each  of 
those  athletes— and  to  us. 

MATTHEW  E.  CLOWNEY 

Philadelphia.  Pennsylvania 

As  the  daughter  of  a  fencer, 
I  found  David  Halberstam's 
"Anatomy  of  a  Champion" 
[May]  most  informative. 

At  the  time  of  his  death, 
in  February  1993,  my  fa- 
ther was  the  oldest  living 
fencer  in  New  York  City, 
and  he  always  considered  it 
a  privilege  when  a  much 
younger  man  asked  to 
fence  with  him. 

ELIZABETH  VOGT  ROSSUCK 

East  Hampton,  New  York 

Your  Annie  Leibovitz  "pho- 
tolympics"  portfolio  was 
sensational,  but  you  missed 
a  great  opportunity  and 
dropped  the  ball— the  field- 
hockey  ball,  that  is.  Al- 
though the  photo  of  the 
U.S.  men's  team  was  pleas- 
ant to  the  eye,  why  not 
bring  to  the  public's  eye 
the  U.S.  women's  team,  a 

bona  fide  medal  contender,  filled  with 

world-class  athletes? 

SHARON  STEELE 

Duluth,  Georgia 

Surely  you  could  have  selected  a  different 
pose  for  Mark  Henry  and  Dominique 
Moceanu  on  your  May  cover.  Through- 
out this  country's  history  and  legacy  of 
slavery,  black  people,  especially  men, 
were  often  used  and  portrayed  as  "beasts 
of  burden,"  as  objects  to  be  used  and 
abused  by  adults,  and  as  playthings  for 
children.  Ms.  Moceanu  is  sitting  on  Mr. 
Henry's  shoulder  as  if  he  were  a  chair. 

CYNTHIA  A.  EVERETT 

Miami,  Florida 

Bravo!  on  your  May  '96  cover  and  cov- 
erage of  the  Olympic  Games.  It  was 
worth  the  $3  for  Annie  Leibovitz's  cov- 
er shot  alone,  to  say  nothing  of  the  rest 
of  her  photographs. 

KIMBERLY  M.  GOLDSTEIN 
Santa  Barbara,  California 


Smoke  Signals 


Marie    Brenner's    article    ["The    Man 

Who    Knew   Too    Much,"    May]    was  j 

breathtaking  in  scope.  The  story  provid-  8 

ed  more  insight  than  any  broadcast  me-  *t 

dia  could  hope  to  offer.  Even  as  all  al-  ° 


VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


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mm 


Diamonds  by  the  Yard 

designed  by  Elsa  Peretti. 

Priced  from  $325. 

To  inquire:  800-526-0649. 


V 


Tiffany  &  Co. 


An  American  Express 
Cardmember  Goes  Shopping 

JERKY  SEINFELD 

{Comedian,  Author,  Cereal  Lover} 


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1 

Chair 

11.  Computer 

2 

Globe 

12.  Coffee  Table 

3 

Rug 

13.  Video  Game 

4 

Shoe  Polisher 

14.  Cleansers 

5 

Sink 

15.  Television 

6 

Goldfish 

16.  Pez  Collection 

7 

Vacuum 

17.  Cereal  Bowls 

8 

Shoes 

18.  Cereal 

9 

Lamp 

19.  Fridge 

10 

Basketball 

20.  Satellite  Dish 

21. 

Bike  &  Stand 

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legations  against  whistle-blower  Jeffrey 
Wigand  were  addressed,  the  picture  was 
unmistakably  clear:  Big  Tobacco,  pre- 
suming that  the  public  cares  about  Wi- 
gand's personal  or  marital  battles,  is 
blinded  by  smoke. 

Brenner's  article  should  be  required 
reading  in  every  junior  high  school  in 
the  nation  to  peel  away  any  whitewash- 
ing public-relations  hype  these  compa- 
nies are  trying  to  sell  to  create  the  next 
generation  of  nicotine  addicts. 

NANCY  LINE  JACOBS 

Omaha.  Nebraska 


Do  you  know  how  to  whistle? 
Jeffrey  Wigand  takes  on  Big  Tobacco. 

Readers  of  Marie  Brenner's  article  on 
Jeffrey  Wigand  might  conclude  that 
the  challenge  to  Mr.  Wigand's  credi- 
bility was  unfair,  inaccurate,  and  per- 
haps even  sinister.  On  the  contrary,  if 
any  industry  other  than  tobacco  were  in- 
volved, the  scrutiny  would  be  con- 
sidered entirely  appropriate  and  routine. 

Mr.  Wigand  made  serious  public 
charges  against  officers  of  Brown  & 
Williamson,  some  of  which,  if  proved, 
could  result  in  criminal  indictments.  Yet 
he  has  refused  to  be  examined  under 
oath  and  to  substantiate  them.  The  cur- 
rent charges  must  be  considered  in  the 
context  of  his  only  available  sworn  testi- 
mony. In  a  January  26,  1994,  deposition 
given  under  oath  to  the  U.S.  Depart- 
ment of  Justice,  Mr.  Wigand  answered 
this  series  of  questions: 

"Are  you  aware  of  any  intent  by 
Brown  &  Williamson  to  use  outside 
counsel  or  its  legal  representative  to  fur- 
ther any  crime  or  fraud?" 

"Are  you  aware  of  any  criminal  or 
fraudulent  behavior  by  Brown  &  Wil- 
liamson as  it  relates  to  the  manufacture 
and  sale  of  cigarettes?" 

VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


"Are  you  aware  of  any  effort  by 
Brown  &  Williamson  to  prevent  any  of 
its  current  or  former  officers  or  em- 
ployees from  speaking  to  officials  of 
the  United  States  Government  about  its 
activities?" 

"Or  any  effort  by  Brown  &  William- 
son to  influence  anyone  to  testify  falsely 
or  give  false  information?" 

To  each  and  every  question,  Mr.  Wi- 
gand responded  with  an  unqualified 
"No." 

In  light  of  the  contradictions  between 
these  statements  and  Mr.  Wigand's 
statements  to  the  press,  the  accused 
challenged  his  credibility.  To  that  end, 
materials  and  facts  that  shed  light  on 
Wigand's  personal  and  professional  life 
were  culled  from  the  public  record  and 
made  available  to  the  press  through  my 
office.  They  were  openly  offered  to,  ac- 
cepted by,  and  indeed  requested  by  sev- 
eral news  organizations. 

After  The  Wall  Street  Journal  exam- 
ined the  materials  and  essentially  dis- 
missed them,  the  Louisville  Courier- 
Journal,  a  nine-time  Pulitzer  Prize- 
winning  newspaper  and  no  friend  of 
the  tobacco  industry,  completed  a 
lengthy  investigation  of  the  same  docu- 
ments and  reported  on  March  28, 
1996,  that  "an  independent  examina- 
tion by  this  newspaper  of  available 
evidence  concerning  Wigand's  profes- 
sional and  personal  lives  disclosed  a 
consistent  pattern  of  conflicting  state- 
ments and  embellishments."  Tlie  Courier- 
Journal  concluded  that  "Wigand's  ac- 
tions may  furnish  his  opponents  with 
ammunition  to  paint  him  as  a  man 
with  an  inflated  sense  of  self  whose 
word  cannot  always  be  trusted  and 
whose  integrity  may  be  suspect."  Tire 
Courier-Journal  also  reported  that  these 
matters  of  character  and  past  behavior 
will  most  likely  be  admissible  in  court. 

If  Ms.  Brenner  or  a  member  of  her 
family  were  publicly  accused  of  a  possi- 
ble crime  without  proof  by  someone 
with  Mr.  Wigand's  personal  and  profes- 
sional history,  would  she  not  challenge 
his  credibility?  Of  course  she  would— 
with  total  vigor.  Mr.  Wigand's  targets 
simply  exercised  the  same  rights. 

JOHN  SCANLON 
Sag  Harbor.  New  York 

Mr.  Scan  Ion  is  a  paid  consultant  for  the  Brown 
&  Williamson  Tobacco  Corp. 

Speaking  of  moral  turpitude!  Laurence 
Tisch  is  a  perfect  example  of  the  type  of 
person  at  the  helm  of  American  busi- 
ness ''day,  where  greed  and  personal 


Where  Can  I  Buy  It  With 
HE  (CARD 


The  American  Express* 
Card  is  welcome  at  all 
kinds  of  places.  Just 
ask  Jerry,  who  uses  his 
Card  for  everyday  items,  as  well 
as  for  the  things  that  make  him, 
well,  Jerry.  In  fact,  it's  so  widely 
accepted,  Jerry  uses  it  wherever  he 
goes.  No  kidding. 


{You  can  find  items  like  Jerry's 
at  these  establishments: 

Petland  Discounts 

F.  W.  Woolworth  Company 

The  Sports  Authority 

RadioShack 

Crate  &  Barrel  Furniture 

Sears 

Rand  McNally  Travel  Store 

Hammacher  Schlemmer 


} 


{ 


And  if  you're  in  Jerry's 
neighborhood,  New  York  City: 

ABC  Carpet  &  Home 

Desco  Vacuums 

Bicycle  Habitat 

Food  Emporium 

Palazzetti 

The  Lighting  Center,  Ltd. 

Nobody  Beats  The  Wiz 


} 


AMERICAN! 

TO  APPLY  CALL 
1-800-THE-CARD 

Cards 


" Companies  were 
forever  selling  me 


• 


, 


Finally  a  tube  of  truth. 


V 
Discover 


Renova 


The  only  prescription  cream  proven 


to  diminish  fine  lines  and  wrinkles.  Proven  to  give 
skin  a  smoother  texture  and  rosier  glow  when 
used  as  part  of  a  comprehensive  skin  care  and  sun 
avoidance  program  and  when  skin  care  and  sun 
avoidance  programs  alone  are  not  enough. 
Those  are  the  facts.  And  so  are  these:  RENOVA  doesn't 
simply  exfoliate  the  surface  layer  of  your  skin  like  over- 
the-counter  wrinkle  treatments  do.  RENOVA  is  a  prescrip- 

RENOVA  is  a  dermal  llon  cream  containing  tretinoin,  a  vitamin  A  derivative 
irritant,  and  the  much  like  the  naturally  occurring  one  in  your  body.  During 

results  of  continued  ^  fjrst  month,  your  skin  may  become  smoother  and  softer. 

lIflian°48  weeksare  A^ter  2  01  3  monlhs,  brown  spots  fade  and  the  fine  lines 
not  known.  In  some  around  your  eyes  and  mouth  will  begin  to  disappear. 
patients  treated  while  using  RENOVA,  you  can  expect  to  experience  some 
W1  1  th     48  re<^ness'  Aching  or  flaking.  Generally,  these  effects  are 

weeks,  there  is  evi-  manageable  and  well-tolerated. 

dence  of  atypical  Remember,  RENOVA  does  not  eliminate  wrinkles,  it  reduces 
changes  m  the  skim  t^em  Nor  joes  -t  r£    ■   sul>ciamaged  skin  or  reverse  the 
The  significance  ot  r  ° 

these  findings  is  aging  process.  And  if  you  stop  using  RENOVA,  improve- 
unknown.  Safety  ments  will  gradually  disappear.  To  learn  more  about  what 
and  effectiveness  of  REN0VA  can  do  lalk  l0  your  doctor  or  caH 

RENOVA  in    _    ___    „.   _k_^T^>.,T. 
individuals  over  50    1-800-54-RENOVA. 
or  in  those  with  Where  there's  proof,  there's  truth. 
moderately  or 
heavily  pigmented 
skin  have  not  been 
established. 


ORTHO 


OPC  1996  See  adjacent  page  for  other  important  information. 


RENOVA 


(TRETINOIN  EMOLLIENT  CREAM) 


^  0.05%  j 


FOR  TOPICAL  USE  ON  THE  FACE  ONLY 


Brief  Summary 


RENOVA  (tretinoin  emollient  cream)  0  05%  contains  the  active  ingredient  tretinoin  (a  retinoid)  in  an  emollient 
cream  base. 

IMPORTANT  NOTE  —  This  information  is  a  BRIEF  SUMMARY  of  the  complete  prescribing  information 
provided  with  the  product  and  therefore  should  not  be  used  as  the  basis  for  prescribing  the  product.  This 
summary  was  prepared  by  deleting  from  the  complete  prescribing  information  certain  text,  tables,  and 
references.  The  physician  should  be  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  complete  prescribing  information  before 
prescribing  the  product. 

INDICATIONS  AND  USAGE: 

RENOVA  (tretinoin  emollient  cream)  0.05%  is  indicated  as  an  ad)unctive  agent  (see  second  bullet  point  below) 
for  use  in  the  mitigation  (palliation)  of  fine  wrinkles,  mottled  hyperpigmentation,  and  tactile  roughness  of  facial 
skin  in  patients  who  do  not  achieve  such  palliation  using  comprehensive  skin  care  and  sun  avoidance  programs 
alone  (see  bullet  point  3  for  populations  in  which  effectiveness  has  not  been  established)  RENOVA  DOES  NOT 
ELIMINATE  WRINKLES,  REPAIR  SUN  DAMAGED  SKIN,  REVERSE  PHOTOAGING,  or  RESTORE  A  MORE 
YOUTHFUL  or  YOUNGER  DERMAL  HISTOLOGIC  PATTERN.  Many  patients  achieve  desired  palliative  effects 
on  fine  wrinkling,  mottled  hyperpigmentation,  and  tactile  roughness  of  facial  skin  with  the  use  of  comprehensive 
skin  care  and  sun  avoidance  programs  including  sunscreens,  protective  clothing,  and  emollient  creams  NOT 
containing  tretinoin. 

•  RENOVA  has  demonstrated  NO  MITIGATING  EFFECT  on  significant  signs  of  chronic  sun  exposure  such  as 
coarse  or  deep  wrinkling,  skin  yellowing,  lentigines,  telangiectasia,  skin  laxity,  keratinocytic  atypia,  melanocytic 
atypia,  or  dermal  elastosis. 

•  RENOVA  should  be  used  under  medical  supervision  as  an  adjunct  to  a  comprehensive  skin  care  and  sun 
avoidance  program  that  includes  the  use  of  effective  sunscreens  (minimum  SPF  of  15)  and  protective  clothing 
when  desired  results  on  fine  wrinkles,  mottled  hyperpigmentation,  and  roughness  of  facial  skin  have  not  been 
achieved  with  a  comprehensive  skin  care  and  sun  avoidance  program  alone 

•  The  effectiveness  of  RENOVA  in  the  mitigation  of  fine  wrinkles,  mottled  hyperpigmentation,  and  tactile  rough- 
ness of  facial  skin  has  not  been  established  in  people  greater  than  50  years  of  age  OR  in  people  with  moder- 
ately to  heavily  pigmented  skin.  In  addition,  patients  with  visible  actinic  keratoses  and  patients  with  a  history  of 
skin  cancer  were  excluded  from  clinical  trials  of  RENOVA,  Thus  the  effectiveness  and  safety  of  RENOVA  in  these 
populations  are  not  known  at  this  time.  (See  WARNINGS  section  ) 

•  Neither  the  safety  nor  the  effectiveness  of  RENOVA  for  the  prevention  or  treatment  of  actinic  keratoses  or  skin 
neoplasms  has  been  established. 

•  Neither  the  safety  nor  the  efficacy  of  using  RENOVA  daily  for  greater  than  48  weeks  has  been  established,  and 
daily  use  beyond  48  weeks  has  not  been  systematically  and  histologically  investigated  in  adequate  and  well- 
controlled  trials.  (See  WARNINGS  section.) 

CONTRAINDICATIONS: 

This  drug  is  contraindicated  in  individuals  with  a  history  of  sensitivity  reactions  to  any  of  its  compo- 
nents. It  should  be  discontinued  if  hypersensitivity  to  any  of  its  ingredients  is  noted, 

WARNINGS 


RENOVA  is  a  dermal  irritant,  and  the  results  of  continued  irritation  of  the  skin  for 
greater  than  48  weeks  are  not  known.  There  is  evidence  of  atypical  changes  in 
melanocytes  and  keratinocytes,  and  of  increased  dermal  elastosis  in  some 
patients  treated  with  RENOVA  for  longer  than  48  weeks.  The  significance  of 
these  findings  is  unknown. 

Safety  and  effectiveness  of  RENOVA  in  individuals  with  moderately  or  heavily 
pigmented  skin  have  not  been  established. 


•  RENOVA  should  not  be  administered  if  the  patient  is  also  taking  drugs  known  to  be  photosensitizers  (e.g.,  thn 
azides.  tetracyclines,  fluoroquinolones,  phenothiazines.  sulfonamides)  because  of  the  possibility  of  augment- 
ed phototoxicity 

•  Safety  and  effectiveness  of  RENOVA  in  individuals  older  than  50  years  ol  age  have  not  been  established 
This  product  should  only  be  used  under  medical  supervision  as  part  of  a  comprehensive  skin  care  and  sun 
avoidance  program  (See  INDICATIONS  AND  USAGE  section.)  It  should  only  be  applied  before  retiring  at  night. 
Because  of  heightened  burning  susceptibility,  exposure  to  sunligqt  (including  sunlamps)  should  be  avoided  or 
minimized  during  use  of  RENOVA,  Patients  must  be  warned  to  use  sunscreens  (minimum  SPF  oil  5)  and  pro- 
tective clothing  when  using  RENOVA.  Patients  with  sunburn  should  be  advised  not  to  use  RENOVA  until  fully 
recovered.  Patients  who  may  have  considerable  sun  exposure  due  to  their  occupation  and  those  patients  with 
inherent  sensitivity  to  sunlight  should  exercise  particular  caution  when  using  RENOVA  and  assure  that  the  pre- 
cautions outlined  in  the  Information  for  Patients  subsection  are  observed. 

RENOVA  should  be  kept  out  of  the  eyes,  mouth,  angles  of  the  nose,  and  mucous  membranes  Topical  use  may 
cause  severe  local  erythema,  pruritus,  burning,  stinging,  and  peeling  at  the  site  of  application.  If  the  degree  of 
local  irritation  warrants,  patients  should  be  directed  to  use  less  medication,  decrease  the  frequency  of  applica- 
tion, discontinue  use  temporarily,  or  discontinue  use  altogether. 

Tretinoin  has  been  reported  to  cause  severe  irntation  on  eczematous  skin  and  should  be  used  only  with  utmost 
caution  in  patients  with  this  condition. 

Application  ol  larger  amounts  of  medication  than  recommended  will  not  lead  to  more  rapid  or  better  results,  and 
marked  redness,  peeling,  or  discomfort  may  occur. 

PRECAUTIONS: 

General:  RENOVA  should  only  be  used  as  an  ad|unct  to  a  comprehensive  skin  care  and  sun  avoidance  pro- 
gram. (See  INDICATIONS  AND  USAGE  section ) 

If  a  drug  sensitivity,  chemical  irritation,  or  a  systemic  adverse  reaction  develops,  use  of  RENOVA  should  be  dis- 
continued 

Weather  extremes,  such  as  wind  or  cold,  may  be  more  irritating  to  patients  using  RENOVA. 

Information  for  Patients:  A  patient  information  leaflet  has  been  prepared  and  is  included  with  each  package  of 

RENOVA  In  addition,  patients  should  be  instructed: 

•  That  RENOVA  is  not  a  cosmetic  preparation  and  should  be  applied  only  as  an  adjunct  to  a  comprehensive 
skin  care  and  sun  avoidance  program, 

•  Never  to  use  more  RENOVA  than  instructed  and  never  us  RENOVA  more  often  than  instructed  as  applica- 
tion of  larger  amounts  of  medication  than  recommendeo  v  ill  not  lead  to  more  rapid  or  better  results,  and 
marked  redness,  peeling,  or  discomfort  may  occur, 

•  Only  to  apply  RENOVA  before  retinny  at  night, 

•  To  use  a  sunscreen  with  a  minimum  SPF  ol  tl  day  when  being  treated  with  RENOVA  Following 
discontinuation  of  RENOVA,  continued  avoidant.  iun  and  use  pf  a  sunscreen  with  a  minimum  SPF  of 
15  is  recommended, 

•  To  avoid  direct  sun  exposure  as  much  as  possible  whei  ,  ismg  RENOVA.  and  to  avoid  sunlamps  totally 
while  using  RENOVA, 


•  NOT  to  use  RENOVA  if  pregnant  or  attempting  to  become  pregnant  or  at  high  risk  of  pregnancy, 

•  NOT  to  use  RENOVA  if  sunburned  or  if  the  patient  has  eczema  or  other  chronic  skin  condition(s), 

•  NOT  to  use  RENOVA  if  inherently  sensitive  to  sunlight. 

•  NOT  to  use  RENOVA  if  also  taking  other  drugs  that  increase  sensitivity  to  sunlight, 

•  To  use  RENOVA  with  caution  if  also  using  other  topical  agents  with  a  strong  skin  drying  effect,  products  with 
high  concentrations  of  alcohol,  astringents,  spices  or  lime,  medicated  soaps  or  shampoos,  permanent  wave 
solutions,  electrolysis,  hair  depilatories  or  waxes,  or  other  preparations  or  processes  that  might  dry  or  imtate 
the  skin,  unless  otherwise  instructed  by  their  health  care  practitioner. 

•  To  discontinue  use  of  RENOVA  and  consult  their  health  care  provider  if  sensitivity  or  increased  chemical  irri- 
tation occurs, 

•  That  a  mapnty  of  patients  will  lose  most  mitigating  effects  on  fine  wrinkles,  mottled  hyperpigmentation,  and 
tactile  roughness  of  facial  skin  with  discontinuation  of  a  comprehensive  skin  care  and  sun  avoidance  program 
including  RENOVA;  however,  the  safety  and  effectiveness  of  using  RENOVA  daily  for  greater  than  48  weeks 
have  not  been  established, 

•  That  most  of  the  improvement  noted  with  RENOVA  is  seen  during  the  first  24  weeks  of  therapy.  Thereafter, 
therapy  primanly  maintained  the  improvement  realized  during  the  first  24  weeks. 

Drug  Interactions:  Concomitant  topical  medications,  medicated  or  abrasive  soaps,  shampoos,  cleansers,  cos- 
metics with  a  strong  drying  effect,  products  with  high  concentrations  of  alcohol,  astringents,  spices  or  lime,  per- 
manent wave  solutions,  electrolysis,  hair  depilatories  or  waxes,  and  products  that  may  irritate  the  skin  should 
be  used  with  caution  in  patients  being  treated  with  RENOVA  because  they  may  increase  irritation  with  RENO- 
VA. 

RENOVA  should  not  be  administered  if  the  patient  is  also  taking  drugs  known  to  be  photosensitizers  (e.g..  thi- 
azides, tetracyclines,  fluoroquinolones,  phenothiazines,  sulfonamides)  because  of  the  possibility  of  augmented 
phototoxicity. 

Carcinogenesis,  Mutagenesis,  Impairment  of  Fertility:  In  a  life-time  dermal  study  in  CD-1  mice,  at  100  and 
200  times  the  average  recommended  human  topical  clinical  dose,  a  few  skin  tumors  in  the  female  mice  and  liver 
tumors  in  male  mice  were  observed.  The  biological  significance  of  these  findings  is  not  clear  because  they 
occurred  at  doses  that  exceeded  the  dermal  maximally  tolerated  dose  (MTD)  of  tretinoin  and  because  they  were 
within  the  background  natural  occurrence  rate  for  these  tumors  in  this  strain  of  mice.  There  was  no  evidence  of 
carcinogenic  potential  when  tretinoin  was  administered  topically  at  a  dose  5  times  the  average  recommended 
human  topical  clinical  dose.  For  purposes  of  comparisons  of  the  animal  exposure  to  human  exposure,  the  "rec- 
ommended human  topical  clinical  dose"  is  defined  as  500  mg  of  0.05%  RENOVA  applied  daily  to  a  50  kg  per- 
son. 

In  a  chronic,  two-year  bioassay  of  Vitamin  A  acid  in  mice  performed  by  Tsubura  and  Yamamoto.  generalized 
amyloid  deposition  was  reported  in  all  groups  in  the  basal  layer  of  the  Vitamin  A  treated  skin.  In  CD-1  mice,  a 
similar  study  reported  hyalinization  at  the  treated  skin  sites  and  the  incidence  of  this  finding  was  0/50, 3/50, 3/50. 
and  2/50  in  male  mice  and  1/50,  0/50.  4/50,  and  2/50  in  female  mice  from  the  vehicle  control.  0.25  mg/kg,  0.5 
mg/kg,  and  1  mg/kg  groups,  respectively. 

Studies  in  hairless  albino  mice  suggest  that  tretinoin  may  enhance  the  tumongenic  potential  of  carcinogenic 
doses  of  UVB  and  UVA  light  from  a  solar  simulator.  In  other  studies,  when  lightly  pigmented  hairless  mice  treat- 
ed with  tretinoin  were  exposed  to  carcinogenic  doses  of  UVB  light,  the  incidence  and  rate  of  development  of  I 
skin  tumors  were  either  reduced  or  no  effect  was  seen.  Due  to  significantly  different  experimental  conditions,  no  • 
strict  comparison  of  these  disparate  data  is  possible  at  this  time.  Although  the  significance  of  these  studies  to 
humans  is  not  clear,  patients  should  minimize  exposure  to  sun. 

The  mutagenic  potential  of  tretinoin  was  evaluated  in  the  Ames  assay  and  in  the  in  vivo  mouse  micronucleus 
assay,  both  of  which  were  negative. 

Dermal  Segment  I  and  III  studies  with  RENOVA  have  not  been  performed  in  any  species.  In  oral  Segment  I  and 
Segment  III  studies  in  rats  with  tretinoin,  decreased  survival  of  neonates  and  growth  retardation  were  observed 
at  doses  in  excess  of  2  mg/kg/day  (>400  times  the  average  recommended  human  topical  clinical  dose). 
Pregnancy. 

Teratogenic  effects:  Pregnancy  Category  C. 

ORAL  tretinoin  has  been  shown  to  be  teratogenic  in  rats,  mice,  rabbits,  hamsters,  and  subhuman  pnmates.  It  t 
was  teratogenic  and  fetotoxic  in  rats  when  given  orally  in  doses  1 000  times  the  average  recommended  human 
topical  clinical  dose.  However,  variations  in  teratogenic  doses  among  various  strains  of  rats  have  been  report- 
ed. In  the  cynomolgus  monkey,  which,  metabolically.  is  closer  to  humans  for  tretinoin  than  the  other  species 
examined,  fetal  malformations  were  reported  at  doses  of  10  mg/kg/day  or  greater,  but  none  were  observed  at  5 
mg/kg/day  (1 000  times  the  average  recommended  human  topical  clinical  dose),  although  increased  skeletal 
variations  were  observed  at  all  doses.  A  dose-related  increased  embryolethality  and  abortion  was  reported. 
Similar  results  have  also  been  reported  in  pigtail  macaques. 

TOPICAL  tretinoin  in  animal  teratogenicity  tests  has  generated  equivocal  results.  There  is  evidence  for  terato- 
genicity (shortened  or  kinked  tail)  of  topical  tretinoin  in  Wistar  rats  at  doses  greater  than  1  mg/kg/day  (200  times 
the  recommended  human  topical  clinical  dose)  Anomalies  (humerus:  short  13%,  bent  6%.  os  parietal  incom- 
pletely ossified  14%)  have  also  been  reported  when  10  mg/kg/day  was  dermally  applied. 
There  are  other  reports  in  New  Zealand  White  rabbits  with  doses  of  approximately  80  times  the  recommended 
human  topical  clinical  dose  of  an  increased  incidence  of  domed  head  and  hydrocephaly,  typical  of  retinoid- 
mduced  fetal  malformations  in  this  species. 

In  contrast,  several  well-controlled  animal  studies  have  shown  that  dermally  applied  tretinoin  was  not  terato- 
genic at  doses  of  100  and  200  times  the  recommended  human  topical  clinical  dose,  in  rats  and  rabbits,  respec- 
tively. 

With  widespread  use  of  any  drug,  a  small  number  of  birth  defect  reports  associated  temporally  with  the  admin- 
istration of  the  drug  would  be  expected  by  chance  alone.  Thirty  cases  of  temporally-associated  congenital  mal- 
formations have  been  reported  during  two  decades  of  clinical  use  of  another  formulation  of  topical  tretinoin 
(Retin-A),  Although  no  definite  pattern  of  teratogenicity  and  no  causal  association  has  been  established  from 
these  cases,  5  of  the  reports  describe  the  rare  birth  defect  category  holoprosencephaly  (defects  associated  with 
incomplete  midline  development  of  the  forebrain)  The  significance  of  these  spontaneous  reports  in  terms  of  nsk 
to  the  fetus  is  not  known. 
Non-teratogenic  effects: 

Dermal  tretinoin  has  been  shown  to  be  fetotoxic  in  rabbits  when  administered  in  doses  100  times  the  recom- 
mended topical  human  clinical  dose.  Oral  tretinoin  has  been  shown  to  be  fetotoxic  in  rats  when  administered  in 
doses  500  times  the  recommended  topical  human  clinical  dose. 

There  are,  however,  no  adequate  and  well-controlled  studies  in  pregnant  women.  RENOVA  should  not  be  used 
during  pregnancy. 

Nursing  Mothers:  It  is  not  known  whether  this  drug  is  excreted  in  human  milk.  Because  many  drugs  are  excret- 
ed in  human  milk,  caution  should  be  exercised  when  RENOVA  is  administered  to  a  nursing  woman. 
Pediatric  Use:  Safety  and  effectiveness  in  patients  less  than  18  years  of  age  have  not  been  established. 
Genatnc  Use:  Safety  and  effectiveness  in  individuals  older  than  50  years  of  age  have  not  been  established. 

ADVERSE  REACTIONS: 

(See  BOXED  WARNING,  WARNINGS,  and  PRECAUTIONS  sections ) 

In  double-blind,  vehicle-controlled  studies  involving  179  patients  who  applied  RENOVA  to  their  face,  adverse 
reactions  associated  with  the  use  of  RENOVA  were  limited  primarily  to  the  skin  During  these  trials,  4%  of 
patients  had  to  discontinue  use  of  RENOVA  because  of  adverse  reactions  These  discontinuations  were  due  to 
skin  irritation  or  related  cutaneous  adverse  reactions, 

Local  reactions  such  as  peeling,  dry  skin,  burning,  stinging,  erythema,  and  pruritus  were  reported  by  almost  all 
subjects  dunng  therapy  with  RENOVA.  These  signs  and  symptoms  were  usually  of  mild  to  moderate  severity 
and  generally  occurred  early  in  therapy  In  most  patients  the  dryness,  peeling,  and  redness  recurred  after  an  ini- 
tial (24  week)  decline. 

OVERDOSAGE: 

Application  of  larger  amounts  of  medication  than  recommended  will  not  lead  to  more  rapid  or  better  results,  and 
marked  redness,  peeling,  or  discomfort  may  occur.  Oral  ingestion  of  the  drug  may  lead  to  the  same  side  effects 
as  those  associated  with  excessive  oral  intake  of  Vitamin  A. 
Caution:  Federal  law  prohibits  dispensing  without  prescription. 

DERMATOLOGICAL  DIVISION 

ORTHO  PHARMACEUTICAL  CORPORATION 

Raritan,  New  Jersey  08869 


1 


ORTHO 


)  OPC  1991 


1/96 


659-10-870-1 


lei 


uws 


power  are  the  motivating  forces.  A  con- 
cern for  our  children  and  the  average 
person  seems  to  have  no  place  in  busi- 
ness or  social  consciousness. 

CLAYRE  HAFT 
Coconut  Grove,  Florida 


Fashion  Victims 


Everyone  I  know  who  shops  in  Barneys 
has  lost  sleep  over  your  article  ["Bring- 
ing Down  Barneys,"  by  Jennet  Conant, 
May],  It  seems  to  me  that  all  of  those 
people  waiting  for  the  demise  of  Bar- 
neys and  gloating  over  the  Pressmans' 
problems  are  suffering  from  a  huge  case 
of  sour  grapes.  Whenever  I  visit  New 
York,  Barneys  is  always  a  destination. 

LAURA  GOLDBERG 
Miami  Beach,  Florida 

Alas,  weep  not  for  Donna  Karan  and 
Hugo  Boss  for  the  uncollected  debts 
they've  amassed  selling  to  Barneys. 
They'll  survive.  Sad  to  say,  there  are 
many  small  vendors  and  contractors 
owed  a  minute  percentage  of  what  Don- 
na Karan  is  owed  that  may  no  longer  be 
in  business  because  they  made  the  mis- 
take of  falling  in  with  this  vile  company. 
A  more  just  justice  would  have  taken 
the  company  away  from  the  Pressmans 
and  then  sent  the  family  to  some  Dev- 
il's Island,  made  out  of  itchy,  lime- 
green  (I  take  that  back— lime  green's 
too  fashionable  a  color  right  now)  poly- 
ester. Good  riddance.  It  couldn't  have 
happened  to  a  nicer  family. 

M.  C.  MARTINO 
Glen  Rock,  New  Jersey 

When  giant  suppliers  such  as  Hugo  Boss, 
Donna  Karan,  and  Hickey-Freeman  do 
not  get  paid  for  merchandise  delivered, 
who  gets  fired?  Regrettably,  employees 
who  toil  hour  after  hour,  bent  over 
sewing  machines  making  goods  that  sup- 
ply Barneys,  a  store  they'll  likely  never 
shop  at  or  visit.  While  Gene  Pressman  is 
dining  at  fashionable  restaurants  for 
$200,  these  fired  workers  are  feeding 
their  kids  on  macaroni  five  nights  a  week 
and,  maybe  once  a  week,  some  chopped 
meat  for  variety.  Their  vacations  are  not 
trips  to  Hawaii  or  Paris,  but  a  walk  to 
the  East  River  or  sitting  on  a  stoop  to 
catch  the  evening  air. 

To  pamper  yourself  with  a  surfeit  of 
luxuries  while  owing  money  to  people 
who  trusted  you  is  to  build  a  life  upon 
the  ruined  lives  of  others. 

MAGGIE  SMITH 

Arlington,  Virginia 

VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


I  am  a  friend  and  neighbor  of  Holly 
Pressman's  and  found  the  references  to 
her  in  your  May  article  to  be  troubling. 
Holly  is  an  intelligent  and  considerate 
person  with  great  integrity.  She  is  re- 
spected tremendously  in  our  community 
as  a  person  of  commitment  and  an  excel- 
lent, dedicated  mother.  She  has  taken  her 
responsibilities  at  Barneys  very  seriously 
and  has  created  a  wonderful  young  boys' 
department,  as  fine  as  any  in  the  city. 

DEBORAH  S.  COGUT 

Greenwich,  Connecticut 

Your  article  about  Barneys  could  have 
been  titled  "Lifestyles  of  the  Spoiled  Rot- 
ten." Would  it  be  stretching  the  limits  to 
compare  the  brothers  Pressman  and 
Menendez?  In  both  cases  we  see  two 
brothers  spoiled  rotten,  endlessly  greedy, 
and  out  of  control.  One  pair  killed  their 
parents,  while  the  other  seems  intent  on 
killing  their  family  dream— Barneys. 

JAKE  GREENBERG 
San  Anselmo,  California 


that  group  of  actors  who  have  built  ca- 
reers on  consistent  good  work.  Enough 
with  "the  next  hot  thing"— give  us  the 
ones  who  have  already  proved  themselves 
in  that  difficult  arena  that  is  Hollywood. 
KENT  MARTIN 
Burbank,  California 


A  Day  in  the  Life 


Hunt  No  Further 


Helen  Hunt  ["Mad  About  Helen,"  by 
David  Kamp,  May]  is  certainly  one  of 


Each  time  the  mailman  brings  Vanity 
Fair,  all  activity  planned  for  my  day 
stops!  It  is  one  of  my  luxury  moments  in 
life  to  be  able  at  78  to  sit  quietly  and 
absorb  all  that  Vanity  Fair  offers.  I  had 
to  send  this  thank-you  to  all  who  give 
their  best  talent  to  a  magazine  that,  in 
my  opinion,  has  no  competition. 

MILDRED  P.  WHITWORTH 
Chino  Hills.  California 

CORRECTION.-  In  June's  "Hot  Type,"  by  Elissa 

Scbappell,  the  title  of  Nancy  Friday 's  nen  >  book  was 
given  incorrectly.  It  is  The  Power  of  Beauty. 

Letters  to  the  editor  should  be  sent  with  the 
writer's  name,  address,  and  daytime  phone 
number  to:  The  Editor,  Vanity  Fair,  350  Mad- 
ison Avenue,  New  York,  New  York  10017.  Ad- 
dress electronic  mail  to  vfmail@vf.com.  The 
letters  chosen  for  publication  may  be  edited 
for  length  and  clarity. 


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31 


tom  mil 


HAVANAS  IN  CAMELOT 


J.EK.'s  humidor  may  have  fetched  $574,500  at  Sotheby's, 

but  it's  impossible  to  put  a  price  on  memory:  a  young  writer's  first  dazzling 

glimpse — through  fragrant  cigar  smoke — of  Kennedy  glamour 

BY  WILLIAM  STYRON 


ike  millions  of 
ers,  I  watched  trans- 
fixed as  the  acquisi- 
Hn  tive  delirium   that 
swept   through    Sotheby's 
turned  the  humblest  knick- 
knack  of  Camelot  into  a  fetish  for  which 
people  would  pony  up  a  fortune.  A  bun- 
dle of  old  magazines,  including  Modern 
Screen  and  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  went 
for  $12,650.  A  photograph  of  an  Aaron 
Shikler  portrait  of  Jackie— not  the  por- 
trait itself,  mind  you,  a  photo—was  sold 

32 


for  $41,400.  (Sotheby's  had 
valued  the  picture  at  $50  to 
$75.)  A  Swiss  "Golf-Sport" 
stroke  counter,  worth  $50  to 
$100  by  Sotheby's  estimate, 
fetched  an  insane  $28,750. 
But  surely  among  the  most  grandiose 
trophies,  in  terms  of  its  bloated  price, 
was  John  Kennedy's  walnut  cigar  humi- 
dor, which  Milton  Berle  had  given  the 
president  in  1961  after  having  attached  a 
plaque  reading  "To  J.F.K.  Good  Health 
Good  Smoking,  Milton  Berle— 1/20/61." 


The  comedian  had  paid  $600  to  $800 
for  it  in  that  year.  Thirty-five  years  lat- 
er, poor  Berle  tried  to  buy  the  humidor 
back  at  Sotheby's  but  dropped  out  of 
the  bidding  at  $185,000. 

The  winner  was  Marvin  Shanken,  pub- 
1  isher  of  the  magazine  Cigar  Aficionado, 
who  spent  $574,500  on  an  object  the 
auctioneers  had  appraised  at  $2,000  to 
$2,500.  Even  at  such  a  flabbergasting 
price  the  humidor  should  prove  to  play 
an  important  mascot  role  in  the  fortunes 
of  Shanken's  magazine,  which  is  already 

VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


When 
The  Going 

Gets  Tough, 

The  Tough  Get 

Comfortable. 


■Mil 


Introducing  The  1991 


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wildly  successful,  featuring 
(aside  from  cigars  and  cigar- 
puffing  celebrities)  articles 
on  polo  and  golf,  swank  ho- 
tels, antique  cars,  and  many 
other  requirements  for  a  tru- 
ly tony  lifestyle  in  the  1990s. 
After  all,  John  F.  Kennedy  was  no 
stranger  to  the  nobby  life,  and  what 
could  be  more  appropriate  as  a  relic  for 
a  cigar  magazine  than  the  vault  in  which 
reposed  the  Havanas  of  our  last  genuine 
cigar-smoking  president? 

1  never  laid  eyes  on  the  fabled  humi- 
dor, but  on  the  occasions  I  encountered 
Kennedy  I  sensed  he  must  have  owned 
one,  protecting  his  precious  supply,  for 
he  approached  cigars  with  the  relish  and 
delight  of— well,  an  aficionado.  Indeed, 
if  1  allow  my  memory  to  be  given  a 
Proustian  prod,  and  recollect  Kennedy 
at  the  loose  and  relaxed  moments  when 
our  lives  briefly  intersected,  I  can  al- 
most smell  the  smoke  of  the  Havanas 
for  which  he'd  developed  such  an  im- 
petuous, Kennedyesque  weakness. 

After  the  clunky  Eisenhower  years  it 
was  wonderful  to  have  this  dashing  young 
guy  in  the  spotlight,  and  soon  there  was 
nothing  unusual  in  seeing  the  pr  sident 
posed,  without  apology  or  self -conscious- 
ness, holding  a  cigar.  I  had  become 
friendly  with  two  members  of  the  Ken- 
nedy staff,  Arthur  Schlesinger  Jr.  and 


Richard  Goodwin,  both  of 
whom  were  so  passionate 
about  cigars  that  smoking 
appeared  to  me  to  be  almost 
a  White  House  subculture. 
They  would  lecture  me  about 
cigars  whenever  I  saw  them 
in  Washington.  Havanas  were,  of  course, 
the  sine  qua  non,  and,  as  an  ignorant  cig- 
arette smoker  still  clinging  miserably  to 
an  unwanted  addiction,  I  found  myself 
fascinated  but  a  little  puzzled  by  all  the 
cigar  talk,  by  the  effusive  praise  for  a 
Montecristo  of  a  certain  length  and  vin- 
tage, by  the  descriptions  of  wrappers  and 
their  shades,  by  the  subtle  distinctions 
made  between  the  flavors  of  a  Ramon 
Allones  and  a  Punch.  Stubbornly,  I  kept 
up  my  odious  allegiance  to  cigarettes,  but 
in  my  secret  heart  I  envied  these  men  for 
their  devotion  to  another  incarnation  of 
tobacco,  one  that  had  been  transubstanti- 
ated from  mere  weed  into  an  object 
plainly  capable  of  evoking  rapture. 

In  late  April  of  1962  I  was  one  of  a 
small  group  of  writers  invited  to  what 
turned  out  to  be  possibly  the  most 
memorable  social  event  of  the  Kennedy 
presidency.  This  was  a  state  dinner  in 
honor  of  Nobel  Prize  winners.  Schlesin- 
ger and  Goodwin  were  responsible  for 
my  being  included— at  the  time,  Kennedy 
didn't  know  me.  as  they  say,  from  Adam— 


and  it  was  a  giddy  pleasure  for  my  wife. 
Rose,  and  me  to  head  off  to  the  White 
House  on  a  balmy  spring  evening  in  the 
company  of  my  friend  James  Baldwin, 
who  was  on  the  verge  of  becoming  the 
most  celebrated  black  writer  in  America. 
1  recall  that  it  was  the  only  time  I  ever 
shaved  twice  on  the  same  day. 

Before  dinner  the  booze  flowed 
abundantly  and  the  atmosphere  crack- 
led with  excitement  as  J.F.K.  and  his 
beautiful  lady  joined  the  assembly  and 
presided  over  the  receiving  line.  Jack 
and  Jackie  actually  shimmered.  You 
would  have  had  to  be  abnormal,  per- 
haps psychotic,  to  be  immune  to  their 
dumbfounding  appeal.  Even  Republi- 
cans were  gaga.  They  were  truly  the 
golden  couple,  and  I  am  not  trying  to 
play  down  my  own  sense  of  wonder 
when  I  note  that  a  number  of  the 
guests,  male  and  female,  appeared  so 
affected  by  the  glamour  that  their  eyes 
took  on  a  goofy,  catatonic  glaze. 

Although  I  remained  in  control  of  my- 
self, I  got  prematurely  plastered;  this  did 
not  damage  my  critical  faculties  when  it 
came  to  judging  the  dinner.  I'd  spent  a 
considerable  amount  of  time  in  Paris  and 
had  become  something  of  a  food  and 
wine  snob.  Later,  in  my  notebook,  I  un- 
gratefully recorded  that  while  the 
Puligny-Montrachet  1959,  served  with 
the  first  course,  was  "more  than  ade- 


36 


VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


* 


>v 


man  Marcus 


**. 

r 

m          \                        i     ■ 
1              °                     1 

e 

t 

i  ma  c 

LANCOME 

PARIS            7 

quate,"  I  found  the  Mouton- 
Rothschild  1955,  accompany- 
ing the  filet  de  boeuf  Welling- 
ton, "lacking  in  maturity." 
The  dessert,  something  called 
a  "bombe  Caribienne,"  I 
deemed  "much  too  sweet,  a  real  bomb." 

Reviewing  these  notes  so  many  years 
later,  I  cringe  at  my  churlishness  (includ- 
ing the  condescending  remark  that  the 
meal  was  "doubtless  better  than  anything 
Ike  and  Mamie  served  up"),  especially  in 
view  of  the  thrilling  verve  and  happy 
spirits  of  the  entire  evening.  Because  of 
the  placement  of  the  tables  I  was  seated 
at  right  angles  to  the  president,  and  I  was 
only  several  feet  away  when  he  rose  from 
his  own  table  and  uttered  his  famous  bon 
mot  about  the  occasion  representing  the 
greatest  gathering  of  minds  at  the  White 
House  since  "Thomas  Jefferson  dined 
here  alone."  The  Nobelists  roared  their  ap- 
preciation at  this  elegant  bouquet,  and  I 
sensed  the  words  passing  into  immortality. 

The  White  House  was  anything  but 


smoke-free,  and  the  scul- 
lions among  us  lit  up  our 
cigarettes.  I  noticed  with  my 
usual  sulkiness  and  envy 
that  many  gentlemen  at  the 
tables  around  the  room  had 
begun  to  smoke  cigars;  among  them  was 
Kennedy,  who  was  engaged  in  conver- 
sation with  a  stunning  golden-haired 
young  woman  and  plainly  relishing  her 
at  least  as  much  as  his  Churchill.  Fol- 
lowing coffee,  we  moved  into  the  East 
Room  for  a  concert  of  chamber  music. 
After  this,  just  as  the  party  was  breaking 
up  and  we  were  about  to  be  converted 
into  pumpkins,  I  was  astonished  to  learn 
from  an  army  captain  in  full  dress  that 
Rose  and  I  were  invited  upstairs  for 
something  "more  intimate"  with  Presi- 
dent and  Mrs.  Kennedy.  Although  I  had 
an  instant's  impish  fantasy  about  what 
the  "more  intimate"  implied— this  was, 
all,  the  dawn  of  the  Swinging  60s— 
1  was  in  fact  rather  relieved  to  discover 
that  the  small  room  into  which  we  were 


Of  all  the  world's 
leaders  the  Harvard  man 
and  the  Marxist  from 
Havana  were  temperamentally 
and  intellectually  most  alike. 


ushered  was  filled  with  cigar  smokers 
and  their  lady  companions. 

The  president  hadn't  arrived  yet,  but 
Jackie  was  there,  as  were  Goodwin  and 
Schlesinger  and  Bobby  Kennedy  and 
Pierre  Salinger,  together  with  their 
wives,  and  all  the  men  were  focusing  on 
their  Havanas  with  such  obvious  plea- 
sure that  one  might  have  thought  the  en- 
tire Nobel  dinner  had  been  arranged  to 
produce  this  fragrant  climax.  Only  in 
fine  Paris  restaurants,  where— unlike  in 
America— cigar  smoking  was  encour- 
aged, had  I  inhaled  such  a  delicious  aro- 
ma. I  had  by  this  time  taken  aboard  too 
many  of  the  various  beverages  the 
White  House  had  provided,  including 
the  dessert  champagne  (Piper  Heidsieck 
1955),  and  sank  down  unwittingly  into 
the  president's  famous  rocking  chair. 

Rocking  away,  I  talked  with  Lionel 
Trilling,  the  renowned  critic,  who,  with 
his  wife,  Diana,  was  the  only  other  liter- 
ary person  invited  upstairs.  He  was  also 
the  only  other  cigarette  smoker,  as  far  as 
I  could  tell— indeed,  a  real  chain-smoker, 
with  a  haggard,  oxygen -deprived  look— 
and  we  made  book  chat  and  indulged  in 
our  forlorn  habit  while  the  others  con- 
vivially  enjoyed  their  great  cigars.  It  was 
not  until  Schlesinger  discreetly  asked  me 
to  let  the  president  sit  down  in  the  rock- 
er, for  the  sake  of  his  dysfunctional 
back,  that  I  realized  that  J.F.K.  had 
been  standing  in  the  room  for  some 
time,  too  polite  to  shoo  me  out  of  his 
chair.  When  I  leapt  up,  mortified,  and 
Kennedy  apologetically  took  my  place,  I 
noticed  that  he  was  still  fondling  his 
Churchill.  The  leader  of  the  Free  World 
wreathed  in  smoke,  gently  rocking:  this 
was  the  relaxed  and  contented  image  I 
took  away  with  me  when,  well  after 
midnight,  we  wobbled  our  way  home- 
ward from  one  hell  of  a  party. 

In  the  months  that  intervened  before  I 
saw  Kennedy  again,  I  waged  a  demon- 
ic struggle  with  my  cigarette  habit. 
Thanks  to  my  two  White  House  gurus, 
I  was  also  gingerly  experimenting  with 
cigars.  The  embargo  against  Cuba,  insti- 


38 


VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


tuted  officially  by  Kennedy  himself,  was 
now  in  force;  Havanas  had  become 
nearly  unavailable  overnight,  and  so  I 
found  myself  buying  the  next-best  ci- 
gars, which  were  then  being  made  in 
the  Canary  Islands.  These  cigars  were 
actually  very  good,  and  many  of  them 
were  outstanding. 

But  I  was  still  hesitant  to  commit 
myself.  Although  I  was  fully  aware 
that  I  was  undermining  my  health 
with  an  addiction  that  had  held  me 
captive  since  the  age  of  15,  I  was  un- 
able to  make  the  transition  to  cigars 
without  going  through  convulsions  of 
moral  doubt.  Actually,  I  was  a  victim 
of  the  conventional  wisdom.  This  was 
because  in  America,  an  essentially  pu- 
ritanical society  that  is  as  absolutist  in 
its  views  about  health  as  it  is  about 
many  other  issues,  there  was  little  dis- 
tinction to  be  made  between  cigarettes 
and  cigars. 

After  all,  in  a  country  which  some 
years  later,  in  its  panic  over  the  choles- 
terol in  eggs,  would  virtually  banish 
this  agelessly  invaluable  food  from  the 
national  diet  rather  than  merely  cau- 
tion moderation,  it  was  entirely  natural 
that  the  relatively  harmless  pleasure  of 
moderate  cigar  smoking  should  suffer 
the  same  opprobrium  as  the  lethal  ad- 
diction to  cigarettes.  If  I  stopped  ciga- 
rettes, there  were  a  lot  of  old  nannies 
of  both  sexes  eager  to  tell  me:  Cigars 
are  just  as  bad! 

Well,  they  plainly  are  not,  and  in- 
deed, unlike  cigarettes,  they  possess  an 
intrinsic  good.  At  that  time,  in  notes  I 
made  for  a  1963  review  (in  The  New 
York  Review  of  Books)  of  The  Con- 
sumers Union  Report  on  Smoking  and 
the  Public  Interest,  which  was  a  pre- 
cursor to  the  original  surgeon  general's 
report  on  the  hazards  of  tobacco,  I 
wrote: 

"It  is  a  grim  irony  that  in  our  health- 
obsessed  society  an  addiction  as  plainly 
ruinous  as  cigarette  smoking  should  be 
condoned  and  promoted  while  the  com- 
paratively benign  use  of  cigars  should  be 
condemned  as  if  it  were  a  plague.  Cigars 
are  a  genuine  pleasure;  cigarettes  are  a 
pseudo-pleasure,  of  the  same  kind  expe- 
rienced by  laboratory  rats.  The  stigma 
against  cigars  has  as  much  to  do  with 
economics  and  social  class  as  it  has  with 
misplaced  moralizing.  The  nearly  univer- 
sal habit  of  cigarette  smoking  is  the 
property  of  the  vast  middle  class,  while 
cigar  smokers  are  confined  to  the  upper 
and  lower  ends  of  the  economic  scale. 
(There  are  overlappings  and  intersections, 


VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


39 


ilfri.Mlilil 


of  course,  but  this  is  the  basic  contour.) 
"Among  middle  class  cigarette  smok- 
ers, cigars  are  regarded  either  as  the 
overpriced  indulgence  of  bankers,  rich 
corporate  board  members  and  movie 
moguls  like  Darryl  Zanuck,  or,  at  the 
lower  end,  the  cheap  habit  of  White 
Owl  chompers  who  inhabit  low-class 
saloons  and  sleazy  gyms.  The  comic 
strip  figure  of  the  1930s  'Pete  the 
Tramp7  best  illustrates  this 
dichotomy:  the  little  drifter 
always  on  the  lookout  for 
plutocrats'  quality  cigar 
butts,  which  he'd  pluck  from 


Kennedy 

in  Hyannis  Port, 

May  11,  1963, 

after  saying  farewell 

to  Canadian 

prime  minister 

Lester  Pearson. 


The  following  summer  I  quit  smoking 
cigarettes  for  good,  cold  turkey.  It 
was  just  a  few  weeks  before  Jack 
Kennedy  invited  Rose  and  me  out  for  a 
ride  on  his  cabin  cruiser,  the  good  ship 
Patrick  J.  He  and  Jackie  crossed  over 
from  the  Cape  to  Martha's  Vineyard, 
where  I  had  rented  a  house,  and  took 
us  out  on  an  overcast  August  day 
for  a  wallowing  luncheon  afloat.  Aside 
from  my  friends  John  and 
Sue  Marquand,  who  accom- 
panied us,  the  only  other 
passenger  aboard  was  the 
late  Stephen  Smith,  J.F.K.'s 


Filipino  into  everyone's  laps,  glasses  of 
beer  not  merely  iced  but  frozen  solid. 
We  got  involved  instead  in  the  conversa- 
tion, which  ranged  from  Massachusetts 
politics  and  the  racial  situation  heating 
up  in  the  Deep  South— the  previous  fall's 
violent  events  in  Oxford,  Mississippi, 
had  plainly  shaken  J.F.K.— to  the  old 
chestnut  about  whether  Alger  Hiss  was 
guilty  (Kennedy  thought  he  was)  and 
the  president's  obvious  pique  over  an  ar- 
ticle in  Tlie  American  Scholar  by  the  crit- 
ic Alfred  Kazin  questioning  his  intellec- 
tual credentials.  I  was  both  amused  and 
impressed  that  Kazin  should  bug  him  so. 


- 


the  gutter  and  impale  on  a  toothpick. 

"Cigars  have  never  found  a  comfort- 
able middle  ground  of  acceptance,"  I 
continued.  "What  compounds  the 
irony  is  that  White  Owls  and  Dutch 
Masters  do  in  fact  offend  the  nostrils— 
certainly  mine— and  women,  especially, 
with  their  canary-like  sensitivity,  are  of- 
ten justifiably  upset  by  such  effluvia. 
Women  disturbed  by  cheap  mass  pro- 
duced cigars  have  innocently  helped 
give  all  cigars  a  bum  rap.  What  is  so 
fascinating  is  that  the  same  women, 
when  exposed  to  the  smoke  of  a  prime 
Montecristo,  will  often  emit  genuine 
swooning  sounds,  thus  demonstrating 
that  cigars  of  high  quality  need  not  en- 
dure prejudice  forever.  Women  some- 
day will  be  smoking  cigars.  I  predict, 
too,  that  at  some  point  in  the  future, 
after  society  has  become  aware  of  the 
awful  hazards  of  cigarettes,  many  of 
the  middle  class  will  begin  gradually 
to  embrace  cigars-  cigars  of  excellence 
which,  coming  from  countries  other 
than  Cuba,  will  also  become  more  and 
more  affordable." 

I'm  pleased  to  find  that  my  crystal 
ball,  so  often  dismally  clouded,  was 
quite  clear  when  I  set  down  those  last 
lines. 


I  began  feeling  a  certain  odd,  fugitive  sadness  at  this 
little  gift  from  Kennedy,  a  sadness  I  couldn't  quite  fathom. 


brother-in-law.  A  Coast  Guard  cutter 
hung  around  not  far  away  for  security 
reasons,  but  otherwise  the  seven  of  us 
had  the  rolling  waves  to  ourselves.  The 
sea  was  moderately  rough,  though  al- 
cohol soothed  the  mal  de  mer.  The 
Bloody  Marys,  poured  out  by  a  rather 
jittery  Filipino  mess  steward,  over- 
flowed their  glasses;  there  was  a  lot  of 
chitchat  between  the  Marquands  and 
Jack  and  Jackie,  who  had  known  each 
other  for  years,  about  mutual  friends; 
variations  on  the  twist,  and  other  hip 
music  of  that  year,  blared  from  a 
record  player;  and  the  general  pre- 
luncheon  mood  was  frisky  despite  the 
gray  weather. 

The  talk  became  a  little  bit  more  seri- 
ous when  we  sat  down  to  eat.  At  the 
table  of  the  Patrick  J.  's  open  cockpit,  no 
one  paid  much  attention  to  the  disas- 
trous lunch.  It  was  a  mad  joke  of  cold 
hot  dogs  in  soggy  buns,  gooey  oeufs  en 
gelee,  spoons  dropped  by  the  nervous 


A  lot  of  the  time  Jackie  kept  her 
shapely  but  rather  large  bare  feet  in  the 
presidential  lap.  At  one  point  J.F.K.,  in 
a  personal  aside  to  me,  asked  what  I 
was  writing,  and  when  I  told  him  it 
was  a  novel  about  Nat  Turner,  who 
had  led  a  19th-century  slave  insurrec- 
tion in  Virginia,  he  became  immediate- 
ly alert  and  probed  me  brightly  and 
persistently  for  information,  which  I 
was  happy  to  provide.  He  seemed  fasci- 
nated by  my  story  of  the  revolt.  The  is- 
sue of  race  was  plainly  beginning  to  be- 
devil Kennedy,  as  it  was  nearly  every- 
one else.  At  that  time,  few  Americans 
had  heard  of  Nat  Turner.  I  told  Ken- 
nedy things  about  slavery  he  had  obvi- 
ously never  known  before. 

Then,  after  the  ice  cream  and  coffee, 
the  president  passed  out  to  the  men 
Partagas  cigars,  made  in  Havana  and 
encased  in  silver  tubes.  I  rolled  mine 
around  between  my  fingers  delightedly, 
trying  not  to  crack  too  obvious  a  smile. 


40 


VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


I  was  aware  that  this  was  a  contraband 
item  under  the  embargo  against  Cuban 
goods  and  that  the  embargo  had  been 
promulgated  by  the  very  man  who  had 
just  pressed  the  cigar  into  my  hand. 
Therefore  the  Partagas  was  all  the 
more  worth  preserving,  at  least  for  a 
while,  in  its  protective  tube,  as  a 
naughty  memento,  a  conversation  piece 
with  a  touch  of  scandal.  I  watched  as 
the  president  began  to  smoke  with 
pleasure,  displaying  no  sense  of  the 
clandestine.  I  palmed  the  Partagas  into 
my  pocket  while  Kennedy  wasn't  look- 
ing, resolved  to  smoke  it  on  some  spe- 
cial occasion,  and  lit  up  one  of  my  Ca- 
nary Island  coronas.  Soon  afterward, 
however,  I  began  feeling  a  certain  odd, 
fugitive  sadness  at  this  little  gift  from 
Kennedy,  a  sadness  I  couldn't  quite 
fathom,  though  it  may  have  been  only 
the  same  poignant  regret  that  prompt- 
ed me  to  write,  later  on,  when  I  re- 
membered the  boat  trip,  "of  the  irrec- 
oncilable differences,  the  ferocious 
animosity  that  separated  Castro  and 
Kennedy.  Of  all  the  world's  leaders  the 
Harvard  man  and  the  Marxist  from 
Havana  were  temperamentally  and  in- 
tellectually most  alike;  they  probably 
would  have  taken  warmly  to  each  other 
had  not  the  storm  of  twentieth-century 
history  and  its  bizarre  determinism  made 
them  into  unshakable  enemies." 

I  saw  Kennedy  again  the  following 
November  at  a  crowded,  elegant  party 
one  Friday  night  in  New  York 
thought,  before  going,  that  we  might 
get  a  brief  glimpse  of  him  and  nothing 
more.  But  Rose  and  I,  entering  the  din- 
ner, discovered  him  at  the  bottom  of  a 
flight  of  stairs  looking  momentarily 
lost  and  abandoned.  As  if  arrested  in 
an  instant's  solitude,  he  was  talking  to 
no  one  and  pondering  his  cigar.  He 
had  a  splendid  Palm  Beach  tan.  He 
threw  his  arms  around  us  and  uttered  a 
line  so  cornily  ingratiating  that  it  gave 
blarney  new  meaning:  "How  did  they 
get  you  to  come  here?  They  had  a  hard 
enough  time  getting  me!"  He  asked  me 
how  the  novel  was  coming,  and  once 
again  he  began  to  talk  about  race.  Did 
I  know  any  Negro  writers?  Could  I 
suggest  some  Negro  names  for  a  meet- 
ing at  the  White  House?  And  so  on.  Fi- 
nally someone  distracted  him  and  he 
disappeared  into  the  crowd.  Sometime 
later,  on  his  way  out,  he  caught  my  eye 
and,  smiling,  said,  "Take  care." 

They  were  words  I  should  have  spoken 
to  him,  for  exactly  two  weeks  later,  on 
another  Friday,  he  was  dead  in  Dallas. 

I  smoked  the  Partagas  in  his  memory.  □ 


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VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


41 


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VIUMl 


THE  BIRTH  OF  PUNK 


In  a  new  oral  history,  Malcolm  McLaren, 
Debbie  Harry,  Richard  Hell,  and  other  progenitors 
of  punk  remember  the  New  York  underground 
roots  of  the  last  great  youth  movement 

BY  LEGS  McNEIL  AND  GILLIAN  McCAIN 


ANARCHY  IN  THE  U.S.A. 

Clockwise  from  top  left:  Ma    olm  McLaren  in  1978; 
Lou  Reed  and  Barbara  Hodes,  1974;  Handsome 
Dick  Manitoba  with  girlfriend,  1976;  the  Sex  Pistols' 
first  album,  1977;  the  New  York  Dolls,  1974;  Max's 
Kansas  City;  punk  fans;  Johnny  Rotten  and  Sid  Vicious, 
1977;  Punk  magazine's  March  1976  issue. 


n  1973,  while  songs  such  as  Deep 
Purple's   "Smoke   on   the  Water" 
and  Wings'   "Live  and  Let  Die" 
were  on  top  of  the  Billboard  charts, 
a  different,  aggressive  kind  of  music 
was  coming  out  of  New  York,  in- 
spired by  the  Velvet  Underground, 
the  MC5,  and  Iggy  Pop  and  the 
Stooges.  A  group  called  the  New 
York  Dolls  brought  a  new  urgency 
to  rock  'n'  roll,  and  within  a  year 
even  rawer,  more  explosive  bands, 
such  as  Television  and  the   Ramones, 
emerged.    A    hand-lettered    New    York 
magazine  called  Punk  gave  its  name  to 
the  new  movement,  and  the  Dolls' 
former  manager  Malcolm  McLaren, 
a  London -based  fashion  designer,  bor- 
rowed a  look  from  Television  bassist 
Richard  Hell— torn  T-shirt,  biker  jacket, 
spiked  hair,  and  safety  pins— and  took  it 
back  to  England.  There  punk  culminated 
in  the  nihilistic  antics  and  political  rav- 
ings of  the  Sex  Pistols.  The  whole  move- 
ment lasted  less  than  six  years. 

DEBBIE    HARRY    (former    singer    for 

Blondie;  solo  recording  artist):  One  day  I 

was  over  at  someone's  apartment  on 

3th  Street,  and  this  station  wagon 

pulls  up,  and  Malcolm  McLaren 

starts  pulling  out  these  rubber 

dresses  and  platform  shoes  and 

selling  them  on  the  street.  We 

didn't  know  who  Malcolm  was, 

but  that's  the  day  we  found  out. 

MALCOLM   McLAREN   (former 
owner  of  the  London  clothing  store 
Sex;  former  manager  of  the  New 
York  Dolls  and  the  Sex  Pistols; 
solo   recording  artist):  The   Dolls 
had  come  into  my  shop  several  times 
in  London,  and  they  were  staggered 
by  the  store  because  nobody 
in   New   York   was   selling 
rock  'n'  roll  culture  in  the 
form  of  dress  and  music  in 
one  particular  place.  It  wasn't 
some  fucking  middle-of-the- 
road    golden -oldies    shop- 
far  from  it. 

About  two  years  after 
the  time  they  came  to  En- 
gland, I  started  managing  the 
Dolls.  It  was  my  raison  d'etre  in  New 
York.  It  was  a  means  of  travel.  But  I 
caught  venereal  disease.  Many  of  the 
girls  around  the  New  York  Dolls  were 
bloody  disease-ridden.  I  had  to  look  at 

Excerpted  from  Please  Kill  Me:  Tlie  Uncensored 
Oral  History  of  Punk,  by  Legs  McNeil  and 
Gillian  McCain,  to  be  published  this  month  by 
Grove  Press;  ©1996  by  the  authors. 

VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


cw^ 


BOUTIQUE 

NEW   YORK      105   ANGELES      HAWAI 


in  iiui  i  imiiiiiiiiiiTiiiiniTiiiiin 


mm 


them  with  a  different  kind  of  eye.  You 
know,  like  some  sort  of  clean-foreigner 
thinking. 

BOB  GRUEN  (photographer):  Malcolm 
made  these  sets  of  clothes  for  everybody 
in  the  New  York  Dolls— the  whole  band 
was  in  red.  And  he  made  this  big  Com- 
munist flag  to  put  behind  the  band. 
Malcolm  really  wanted  to  get  people  ex- 
cited on  a  political  level. 

MALCOLM  McLAREN:  The  New  York 
Dolls  clung  to  that  notion  of  nar- 
cissism which  was  so  apparent  in 
the  60s  generation— of  never 
ever  wanting  to  grow  up. 
The  Dolls  emulated  that  in 
their  transsexual  clothing  and 
their  general  notion  of  remaining 
a  doll.  So  I  tried  to  throw  politics 
into  the  mill.  There  was  the  whole 
notion  of  the  "politics  of  bore- 
dom,"   and    this    whole    idea   of 
dressing  the  Dolls  up  in  red  vinyl 
and    throwing    them    Mao's    Red 
Book— I  just  loved  fucking  with  that 
kind  of  pop-trash  culture  of  Warhol, 
which  was  so  pretentiously  Ameri- 
can, where  everything  had  to  be  a 
product,  everything  had  to  be  dis- 
posable. I  thought,  I'm  not  going 
to  make  them  disposable.  I'm  going  to 
give  them  a  serious  political  point  of  view. 

TERRY  ORK  (former  manager  of  the 
band  Television):  It  was  pretty  bad— [the 
Dolls]  felt  embarrassed  in  their  little 
outfits.  So  I  said  to  Malcolm,  "That 
might  work  in  London,  on  the  King's 
Road,  but  not  [in  New  York]." 

MALCOLM  McLAREN:  To  me,  the  Es- 
tablishment's notion  of  bad  needed  to 
be  redefined.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
70s,  that  meant  Bryan  Ferry.  It  meant 
green  velvet  loon  pants.  It  meant  hip- 
pies, bright  young  things,  the  American 
flag,  television,  and  PG  ratings. 

JERRY  NOLAN  (late  drummer  for  the 
New  York  Dolls  and  the  Hcartbreak- 
ers):  Malcolm  caught  us  at  a  very  vul- 
nerable moment.  lie  had  booked  this 
horrible  string  of  gigs  for  us  in  Florida, 
in  these  terrible  out-of-the-way  clubs. 
The  limos  were  long  gone. 

SYL  SYLVAIN  (former  guitarist  for  the 
New  York  Dolls  and  the  Criminals):  We 
were  staying  at  Jerry  Nolan's  m. 
house  in  Florida.  She  had  six  trailers 
that  she  rented  out  like  motel  rooms. 
and  she  let  us  use  three  of  them.  Every 

46 


night,  before  the  gig,  we'd  have  dinner 
in  Jerry's  mom's  house.  At  first  it  was 
fun,  but  after  a  week  it  started  to  drag. 

JIM  MARSHALL  (known  as  the 
Hound;  currently  a  New  Jersey  disc 
jockey):  A  bunch  of  us  were  hanging 
around  [the  Dolls]  all  the  time— 'cause 
they  were  from  New  York  and  the 
Stooges  never  played  Florida  and  the 
MC5  were  long  gone,  so  they  were  def- 
initely the  only  game  in  town.  We  all 
totally  worshiped  the  Dolls.  In 


"Malcolm  was  always 
making  jokes  with  that  English 
humor  no  one  can 
understand— let  alone  two 
guys  on  heroin." 


LIPSTICK  KILLERS 
The  New  York  Dolls  at  the 
Mercer  Arts  Center  in 
New  York,  New  Year's  Eve, 
1972.  Below,  Malcolm 
McLaren,  the  Dolls' 
manager,  raises  a 
Soviet  banner  for  a 
performance  in  1975. 


roll,  there  was  only  the  Allman 
Brothers  and  Lynyrd  Skynyrd,  and  I 
hated  that  shit.  The  one  thing  that  im- 
pressed me  was  that  [the  Dolls]  were 
always  asking  people  for  their  clothes, 
especially  girls.  They  were,  like,  "I  like 
your  shirt.  Can  I  have  it'1" 

SYL  SYLVAIN:  We'd  have  to  drive  into 
the  country,  to  some  wooden  shack,  and 
there'd  be,  like,  20  people  there  yelling, 
"Play  the  Rolling  Stones!"  So  we  knew 
we  were  not  doing  too  good.  Jerry  and 
Johnny  [Thunders,  late  New  York  Dolls 
and  Heartbreakers  guitarist]  didn't  like 
Malcolm.  Malcolm  was  always  goofing 
around.  He  was  always  making  jokes 
with  that  sort  of  English  humor  that  no 
one  can  understand- -let  alone  two  guys 
on  heroin.  Plus  Malcolm  would  wake  up 
with  his  curly  hair  all  sticking  up,  with 
his  tasseled  pants  and  shit.  Jerry  would 
say,  "'Johnny,  look  at  this  guy.  This  is 
how  we're  gonna  become  like  the  Beat- 
les, with  this  schmuck?"  They  didn't  take 
Malcolm  seriously,  which  was  a  mistake. 

JIM  MARSHALL:  Our  friend  that  used 
to  go  into  Overtown,  in  Miami,  to  get 
dope  for  Johnny  and  Jerry,  got  busted. 
Me  was.  like,  15  at  the  time  and  I  think 


the  cops  roughed 
him  up.  Then  nobody  want- 
ed to  go  down  to  Miami  to  get  dope, 
so  they  quit  the  band. 

JERRY  NOLAN:  We  were  having  dinner 
one  night  when  David  [Johansen,  former 
New  York  Dolls  singer  who  later  became 
Buster  Poindexter]  said,  "Anyone  in  this 
band  can  be  replaced."  That  did  it.  I  got  up 
and  said,  "I'm  out."  Then  Johnny  got  up 
and  said,  "If  Jerry's  leaving,  I  am,  too." 

MALCOLM  McLAREN:  I  thought  they 
were  leaving  because  they  hated  the 
group  and  thought  there  was  no  genuine 
likelihood  of  them  having  success  in 
Tampa.  They  really  wanted  to  get  back 
to  New  York  because  it  was  easier  for 
them  to  score  heroin.  I  was  so  naive. 

ELIOT  KIDD  (singer  and  guitarist  for  the 

Demons):  I  knew  that  the  New  York  ^ 

Dolls  were  supposed  to  be  in  Florida  for  j£ 

another  week,  so  when  I  saw  Johnny  » 

and  Jerry  [in  New  York],  I  said  to  them,  * 

"What  the   fuck   are   you  guys  doing  8 

VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


f  I 


The  correct  answer  to  the  question, 
"Does  this  look  stupid  on  me?"  is  "No!' 


If  s  a  woman 
thing. 


SURGEON  GENERAL'S  WARNING:  Smoking 
Causes  Lung  Cancer,  Heart  Disease, 
Emphysema,  And  May  Complicate  Pregnancy. 


©Philip  Morris  Inc.  1996 

8  mg  "tar"  0.7  mg  nicotine  av.  per  cigarette  by  FTC  method. 


mi iiHMUMii— m— rnniMMinnii— MMimi 


MARQUEE  MOON 

CBGB's  in  1977.  Below.  Christmas  1975  party 
at  Max's  Kansas  City:  singer  Wayne  County, 
bottom  center;  directly  behind  him,  Richard  Hell; 
in  bottom  right  corner,  the  Ramones. 


back?"  They  said,  "We  quit 
the  band."    I   thought   they 
were  kidding.  I  started  to  re- 
alize that  they  were  serious. 
They  said,  "We  got  Rich- 
ard Hell  leaving  Television 
and   he's   going   to    play 
with  us." 

DUNCAN   HANNAH 
(painter  and  actor):  I 
think  Tom  [Verlaine, 
singer  and  guitarist  for  Television]  was 
mad  because  Richard  Hell  would  get  too 
high.  But  Richard's  thinking  was:  That's 
rock  'n'  roll.  I  mean.  Hell  wasn't  a  great 
bass  player,  plus  he  was  goofy— the  way 
he  jumped  around  and  made  faces,  like 
he  was  something  out  of  a  revival  show. 

RICHARD  HELL  (real  name,  Richard 
Meyers;  former  singer  and  bassist  for 
Television,  the  Heartbreakers.  and  Rich- 
ard Hell  and  the  Voidoids;  actor,  with  a 
brief  appearance  as  Madonna's  mobster 
lover  in  Desperately  Seeking  Susan): 
Tom  got  horrible,  man.  He  gradually 
decided  that  he  lived  by  separate  rules. 
And  if  anything  fell  apart  for  him,  Tom 
would  just  say  that  he  was  a  misunder- 
stood genius. 

ROBERTA  BAYLEY  (doorperson  at  CBGB's; 
photo  editor  of  Punk):  Tom  Verlaine  was 
just  cutting  all  of  Richard's  songs  out, 
one  by  one.  Richard  used  to  sing  maybe 
half  of  the  songs  in  Television;  then  he 
was  only  singing  one  song,  "Blank  Gen- 
eration." Then  I  believe  that  Tom  sug- 
gested, "Let's  cut  'Blank  Generation." 

SYL  SYLVAIN:  After  Malcolm  a 
back,  we  went  to  CBGB's  almost 
night.  The  person  that  he  loved  the  n. 
was  Richard  Hell.  I  mean,  right  before 


"Beethoven  quartets 
are  supposed  to 
be  slow.  Rock'n'roll  is 
supposed  to  be  fast.77 


Malcolm  left  for  England,  he  gave  me  a 
suit  to  give  to  Richard.  He  kept  saying, 
"You  won't  forget  to  give  that  suit  to 
Richard.  I  love  Richard.  1  think  Richard 
has  a  lot  of  talent." 

MALCOLM  McLAREN:  I  just  thought 
Richard  Hell  was  incredible.  Again,  I 
was  sold  another  fashion  victim's  idea. 
This  was  not  someone  dressed  up  in  red 
vinyl,  wearing  bloody  orange  lips  and 
high  heels.  Here  was  a  guy  looking  like 
he'd  just  grown  out  of  a  drain  hole, 
looking  like  he  was  covered  in  slime, 
and  looking  like  no  one  gave  a  fuck 
about  him.  And  looking  like  he  didn't 
really  give  a  fuck  about  you!  He  was 
this  wonderful,  bored,  drained,  scarred, 
dirty  guy  with  a  torn  T-shirt.  And  this 
look  of  this  spiky  hair,  everything  about 
it— there  was  no  question  that  I'd  take  it 


back  to  London.  I  was  going  to  trans- 
form it  into  something  more  English. 

RICHARD  HELL:  I  liked  Malcolm  be- 
cause he  seemed  to  be  really  interest- 
ed in  me.  There  weren't  that  many 
people  who  gave  us  any  respect, 
you  know? 

BOB   GRUEN:   The    first 
time  I  saw  Richard  Hell, 
he    walked    into    CBGB's 
wearing  a  white  T-shirt  with 
a  bull's-eye  painted  on  it, 
and  the  words  "Please  Kill 
Me"  written  on  it.  For  some- 
body to  walk  the  streets  of 
New  York  with  a  target  on  his 
chest,  with  an  invitation  to  be 
killed— that's  quite  a  statement. 

RICHARD  HELL:  I  don't  remem- 
ber wearing  the  "Please  Kill  Me" 
T-shirt,  though  I  do  remember 
forcing  Richard  Lloyd  to  wear 
it.  I  was  too  much  of  a  coward. 

RICHARD  LLOYD  (guitarist  for  Televi- 
sion): I  was,  like,  "I'll  wear  it."  So  I  wore 
it  when  we  played  upstairs  at  Max's 
Kansas  City,  and  afterwards  these  kids 
came  up  to  me.  These  fans  gave  me  this 
psychotic  look— they  looked  as  deep  into 
my  eyes  as  they  possibly  could— and  said, 
"Are  you  serious?"  Then  they  said,  "If 
that's  what  you  want,  we'll  be  glad  to 
oblige  because  we're  such  big  fans!"  They 
were  looking  at  me,  wild-eyed,  and  I 
thought,  I'm  not  wearing  this  shirt  again. 

TERRY  ORK:  I  approached  Hilly  [Kris- 
tal,  owner  of  CBGB's]  and  said,  "Hilly, 
look  what  you  got,  look  at  the  crowds 
we  had  here!"  I  said,  "You  gotta  go 
with  new  music  every  night."  The  mu- 
sic didn't  have  a  name  yet.  And  that's 
when  it  really  began  to  break,  and  we 
started  getting  other  great  bands,  like 
the  Ramones. 

RICHARD  HELL:  The  scene  definitely 
started  snowballing.  CBGB's  was  clearly 
where  things  were  happening,  from  the 
very  first  time  we  played  there.  There 
was  not  another  rock  'n'  roll  band  in 
the   world    with    short    hair   and    torn 


48 


VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


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clothes.  We  were  these  notch-thin,  home- 
less hoodlums,  playing  really  aggressive 
music  that  was  also  lyrical.  But  I  was 
pretty  pissed  off  when  I  first  heard  the 
Sex  Pistols'  "'Pretty  Vacant."  Malcolm 
had  stolen  that  whole  attitude  from 
"Blank  Generation."  But  ideas  are  free 
property.  I  stole  shit,  too. 

MALCOLM  McLAREN:  I  came  back  to 
England  determined.  I  had  these  images 
that  I  came  back  with— it  was  like  Mar- 
co Polo,  or  Walter  Raleigh.  These  are 
the  things  I  brought  back:  the  image  of 
this  distressed,  strange  thing  called 
Richard  Hell.  And  this  phrase,  "the 
blank  generation." 

LEGS  McNEIL  (real  name,  Eddie  Mc- 
Neil; co-founder  of  Punk  magazine;  for- 
mer editor  in  chief  of  Nerve):  The  whole 
idea  for  Punk  magazine  came  from  two 
inspirations:  [my  friend]  John  Holm- 
strom's  teacher  at  the  School  of  Visual 
Arts  Harvey  Kurtzman,  who  was  the 
cartoonist  who  had  started  Mad  maga- 
zine, and  the  Dictators'  Go  Girl  Crazy! 

HANDSOME  DICK  MANITOBA  (known 
as  the  Handsomest  Man  in  Rock  'n' 
Roll;  singer  for  the  Dictators  and  Mani- 
toba's Wild  Kingdom):  The  Dictators 
were  latecomers  compared  to  the  guys 
who  were  living  downtown,  even  though 
we  had  the  first  record  out.  Go  Girl  Cra- 
zy! was  released  in  1975.  I  get  the  feel- 
ing that  we  were  perceived  as  these 
Bronx  bullies.  Boorish  rednecks.  Maybe, 
to  some  degree,  we  came  off  like  that. 

LEGS  McNEIL:  My  only  ambition  in 
life  became  to  meet  Handsome  Dick 
Manitoba.  That's  why  we  started  Punk 
magazine,  so  we  could  hang  out  with 
the  Dictators. 

ANDY  SHERNOFF  (foimer  bassist  for 
the  Dictators):  When  we  first  started  the 
Dictators,  we  would  bring  Handsome 
Dick  out  in  his  bathrobe  and  he  would 
sing  "Wild  Thing."  And  since  the  audi- 
ence was  usually  composed  of  all  our 
friends,  they  would  just  go  crazy! 

HANDSOME  DICK  MANITOBA:  I  was 
always  the  kind  of  guy,  if  you  threw  food 
at  me,  I  have  to  throw  10  times  the  food 
at  you.  I  have  to  one-up  you  all  the  time. 

LEGS  McNEIL:  When  I  was  18,  I  was 

living  in  New  York,  working  at  some 

hippie  film  commune  on   14th  Street, 

S    making  this  horrible  movie  about  a  stu- 

8   pid  advertising  executive  who  takes  acid 

VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


and  drops  out.  This  was  1975,  and  the 
idea  of  taking  acid  and  dropping  out  was 
just  so  lame,  and  the  hippie  film  com- 
mune was  just  as  lame.  I  hated  hippies. 
Anyway,  summer  came,  and  I  went  back 
to  Cheshire,  Connecticut,  where  I  grew 
up,  and  made  this  Three  Stooges  come- 
dy with  two  high-school  friends  of  mine, 
John  Holmstrom  and  Ged  Dunn.  Then 
one  day  we  were  riding  in  the  car,  and 
John  said,  "I  think  we  should  start  a 
magazine." 

We  had  been  listening  to  Go  Girl  Cra- 
zy!, and  we'd  just  get  drunk  every  night 
and  lip-synch  to  it.  Holmstrom  had 
found  the  record.  He  was  the  one  who 
turned  Ged  and  I  on  to  the  Velvet  Un- 
derground, Iggy  and  the  Stooges,  and 
the  New  York  Dolls.  I  hated  most  rock 
'n'  roll  because  it  was  about  lame  hippie 
stuff.  There  really  wasn't  anyone  describ- 
ing our  lives.  But  I  didn't  understand 
why  Holmstrom  wanted  to  start  a  maga- 
zine. John  said,  "If  we  had  a  magazine, 
we  could  drink  for  free.  People  will  give 
us  free  drinks."  That  got  me.  Holmstrom 
wanted  the  magazine  to  be  a  combina- 
tion of  everything  we  were  into— televi- 
sion reruns,  drinking  beer,  getting  laid, 
cheeseburgers,  comics,  grade-B  movies, 
and  this  weird  rock  'n'  roll  that  no- 
body but  us  seemed  to  like:  the  Vel- 
vets, the  Stooges,  the  New  York 
Dolls,  and  now  the  Dictators. 

I  saw  the  magazine  Holmstrom 
wanted  to  start  as  a  Dictators  al- 
bum come  to  life.  On  the  inside 
sleeve  of  the  record  was  a  picture 
of  the  Dictators  hanging  out  [at]  a 
White  Castle  hamburger  stand. 
They   were   dressed    in    black 
leather  jackets.    The    picture 
seemed  to  describe  us  perfectly- 
wise  guys.  So  I  thought  the 
magazine  should  be  for  other 
fuckups  like  us.  Kids  who  grew 
up  believing  only  in  the  Three 
Stooges.  Kids  that  had  parties 
when  their  parents  were  away 
and  destroyed  the  house.  So  I 
said,  "Why  don't  we  call  it 
PunkV  The  word  "punk" 
seemed    to    sum    up    the 
thread  that  connected  every- 
thing we  liked-  drunk,  ob- 
noxious, smart  but  not  pre- 
tentious, absurd,  ironic, 
and  things  that  appealed 
to  the  darker  side.  So 
John  Holmstrom  said, 
"Well,    I'm    gonna   be 
the  editor."   Ged   said,   "I'm 
gonna  be  the  publisher."  They  both 
looked  at  me  and  said,  "What  are  you 


gonna  do?"  I  had  no  skills.  Then  Holm- 
strom said,  "You  can  be  the  resident 
punk!"  So  it  was  decided  I  would  be  a 
living  cartoon  character,  like  Alfred  E. 
Neuman  was  to  Mad  magazine.  And 
Holmstrom  changed  my  name  from  Ed- 
die to  Legs.  It's  funny,  but  we  had  no 
idea  about  CBGB's  and  what  was  go- 
ing on,  but  I  don't  think  we  cared.  We 
just  liked  the  idea  of  Punk  magazine. 

MARY  HARRON  (former  feature  writ- 
er for  Punk;  co-writer  and  director  of  / 
Shot  Andy  Warhol):  I  met  Legs  when  I 
was  working  as  the  cook  for  Total  Im- 
pact, the  hippie  film  commune  on  14th 
Street.  Legs  came  in  and  said,  "We're 
starting  a  magazine.  It's  called  Punk." 
So  I  said,  "Oh,  I'll  write  for  you," 
even  though  I  didn't  know  what  it  was 
about.  A  few  nights  later  Legs  and 
John  came  in  and  said  they  were  going 

"Two  maniacs  were 
running  around  putting  up  signs 
that  said,  PUNK  IS  COMING!" 


RAPTURE  "^3f 

New  Wave  singer  Debbie  Harry  performing 
with  Blondie  at  CBGB's  in  1976. 

49 


tfloaoa 


*"-"•  "*"" 


to  go  to  CBGB's.  We  all 

went  to  hear  the  Ramones, 
and  that  was  the  night  every- 
thing happened. 

LEGS    McNEIL:    We    talked 
our  way  into  CBGB's,   and 
then  I  saw  this  guy  with  really 
short  hair  and  sunglasses  sit- 
ting at  a  table.   I   recognized 
him  as  Lou  Reed.  Holmstrom 
had  been  playing  Lou  Reed's 
Metal  Machine  Music  for  weeks. 
It    was    awful,    just    noise, 
which     Holmstrom     loved 
and  proclaimed  the  ultimate 
punk  album.  So  I  went  up  to 
Holmstrom  and  said,  "Maybe 
we  should  interview  him  too."  I 
was  thinking— you  know— as  long  as  we 
were  there.  So  I  went  up  to  Lou:  "Hey, 
we're   gonna    interview   you    for   our 
magazine!"  Then  Holmstrom  said  to 
Lou,  "Yeah,  we'll  even  put  you  on  the 
cover!"  Lou  just  turned  around,  real 
deadpan,  and  said,  "Oh,  your  circula- 
tion must  be  fabulous." 

DANNY  FIELDS  (writer  and  former 
record  executive;  former  manager  of 
the  Stooges  and  the  Ramones):  I  was 
editing  16  Magazine  and  writing  a  col- 
umn in  the  Soho  Weekly  News,  and  I 
was  always  writing  about  Television 
and  Patti  Smith.  So  Tommy  [Ramone, 
drummer  for  the  Ramones]  would  call 
me  and  say,  "Why  don't  you  ever  write 
about  us?"  [Music  critic]  Lisa  Robin- 
son and  I  decided  to  divide  up.  There 
was  some  other  band  who  was  harass- 
ing both  of  us,  and  we  decided  [that]  I 
would  go  see  the  other  band  and  Lisa 
would  see  the  Ramones.  The  next  day 
Lisa  called  me  all  excited  about  the,  Ra- 
mones, saying,  "Oh,  you'll  love  them. 
They  do  songs  one  minute  long  and  it's 
very  fast  and  it's  all  over  in  less  than  a 
quarter  of  an  hour.  And  it's  everything 
you  like  and  you'll  love  it.  And  it's  just 
the  funniest  thing  I've  ever  seen." 

I  went  down  to  see  them  at  CBGB's, 
and  I  got  this  seat  up  front  with  no 
problems.  They  were  the  perfect  band. 
They  were  fast  and  I  liked  fast.  Beetho- 
ven quartets  aie  supposed  to  be  slow. 
Rock  'n'  roll  is  supposed  to  be  fast.  I 
introduced  myself  to  them  afterv 
and  I  said,  "I  love  you  so  much,  1 
your  manager."  And  they  said,  "Oh. 
good,  we  need  a  new  drum  set.  Do  yc  i 
have  money?"  I  asked  my  mother  for 
$3,000  and  she  gave  it  to  me.  That's 
how  I  started  managing  the  Ramones.  I 
bought  myself  into  being  their  manager. 

50 


became  to  meet  Handsome 
Dick  Manitoba." 


LEGS  McNEIL:  Just  as  we  were  talking  to 
Lou  Reed,  the  Ramones  hit  the  stage: 
four  really  pissed-off  guys  in  black  leather 
jackets.  It  was  like  the  Gestapo  had  just 
walked  into  the  room.  These  guys  were 
definitely  not  hippies.  Then  they  counted 
off  a  song— "one,  two,  three,  four!"- 
and  we  were  hit  with  this  blast  of  noise. 
You  physically  recoiled  from  the  shock  of 
it,  like  this  huge  wind,  and  before  I  could 
even  get  into  it,  they  stopped.  Apparently 
they  were  all  playing  a  different  song. 
The  Ramones  had  a  mini-fight  onstage. 
They  were  just  so  thoroughly  disgusted 
with  each  other  that  they  threw  down 
their  guitars  and  stomped  off  the  stage. 
Lou  Reed  was  sitting  at  the  table  laughing. 
Then  the  Ramones  came  back,  count- 
ed off  again,  and  played  the  best  18 
minutes  of  rock  'n'  roll  that  I  had  ever 
heard.  You  could  hear  the  Chuck  Berry 
in  it.  When  the  Ramones  came  offstage 
we  interviewed  them,  and  they  were 
like  us.  They  talked  about  comic  books 
and  60s  bubblegum  music  and  were 
really  deadpan  and  sarcastic.  I  really 
thought  I  was  at  the  Cavern  Club  in 
1963  and  we  had  just  met  the  Beatles. 
Only  it  was  our  band— the  Ramones. 
But  we  had  to  go  interview  Lou  Reed, 
who  was  old  and  snotty. 

MARY  HARRON:  I  was  quite  startled 
because  of  the  way  Legs  and  John 
ask  the  questions.  It  was 
•urish.  They  would  ask, 
"What  kind  of  hamburgers  do  you 
like?"  Lou  got  very  mad  at  Legs.  He 


just  hated  him. 

What   did  we  get?   Lou 

Reed  being  rude  to  us,  really. 


LEGS  McNEIL:  Holmstrom  kept  jump- 
ing up  and  down,  saying,  "We  got  Lou 
Reed  for  the  cover!  We  got  Lou  Reed 
for  the  cover!"  I  didn't  know  what  he 
was  so  excited  about. 

MARY  HARRON:  When  I  finished  writ- 
ing the  Ramones  article,  I  walked  that 
night  all  the  way  across  town  to  deliver 
the  article  to  the  "Punk  Dump,"  the 
PimAr-magazine  office  on  10th  Avenue.  It 
was  Taxi  Driver  time— you  know,  steam 
coming  out  of  the  manholes.  It  was  real- 
ly a  beautiful  kind  of  weird  New  York 
night,  and  the  Punk  Dump  looked  like 
something  out  of  "Batman."  It  was  a 
storefront  under  the  train  tracks  with  the 
windows  painted  black— like  a  cave.  The 
light  was  on,  and  John  Holmstrom  was 
there  at  his  desk,  doing  the  artwork  for 
the  cover  for  the  first  issue  of  Punk.  It 
was  a  cartoon!  I  read  the  Lou  Reed  in- 
terview quickly,  and  I  could  see  that 
everything  that  was  humiliating,  embar- 
rassing, and  stupid  had  been  turned  to 
an  advantage.  And  that's  when  I  knew 
that  Punk  was  going  to  work. 

WAYNE  KRAMER  (former  guitarist  for 
the  MC5):  While  I  was  in  jail  [in  Ken- 
tucky for  cocaine  dealing],  one  of  my 
pals  bought  me  a  subscription  to  Bill- 
board magazine.  I  started  reading  about 
the  Ramones— who  to  me  all  looked  like 

VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


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Fred  "'Sonic"  Smith  [late  MC5  guitarist 
and  husband  of  Patti  Smith].  From 
where  I  sat,  "punk"  did  not  have  a  good 
ring  to  it.  So  I  was  flushing  the  articles 
down  the  toilet,  because  in  jail  a  punk 
is  somebody  that  they  knock  down  and 
make  their  girlfriend.  So  when  I  kept 
reading  in  Billboard  that  my  band  start- 
ed this  punk  thing,  I  was  thinking.  Oh 
man,  I  don't  want  nobody  to  start 
thinking  I'm  involved  in  this  punk- 
music  thing,  not  here  in  jail. 

LEGS  McNEIL:  The  next  thing  we  did 
was  go  out  and  plaster  the  city  with 
these  little  posters  that  said,  watch  out! 
punk  is  coming!  Everyone  who  saw 
them  said,  "Punk?  What's  punk?"  John 
and  I  were  laughing.  We  were,  like, 
"Ohhh,  you'll  find  out." 

DEBBIE  HARRY:  John  Holmstrom  and 
his  living  cartoon  creature,  Legs  Mc- 
Neil, were  two  maniacs  running  around 
town  putting  up  signs  that  said,  punk 
is  coming!  We  thought,  Here  comes 
another  shitty  group  with  an  even  shit- 
tier  name. 

BOB  GRUEN:  The  first  time  I  went  to 
England,  the  only  phone  number  I  had 
was  for  Malcolm  McLaren.  He  took  me 
down  to  the  Club  Louise.  There 
were  all  these  kids  hanging  out 
wearing    weird    clothes    and 
their  hair  in  that  weird  spiky 
way.   The   Sex   Pistols   came 
into   the   club   and   they   were 
ridiculous.    All    the    kids    were 
standing   around   like    "Oooh,   it's 
them,  they're  so  great."  The  Sex  Pis- 
tols were  the  complete  center  of  at- 
tention in  this  group  which  included 
Joe   Strummer   [of  the   Clash]    and 
Mick  Jones  [of  the  Clash  and  later 
Big  Audio  Dynamite]  and  Billy  Idol 
and  Adam  Ant  and  Siouxsie  Sioux. 

MARY  HARRON:  You  could  really  feel 
the  world  moving  and  shaking  that  au- 
tumn of  1976  in  London.  I  remember 
going  to  see  the  Damned  play  that  sum- 
mer. I  was  wearing  my  PwH^-magazine 
T-shirt  and  I  got  mobbed.  There  were 
hundreds  of  little  kids  wearing  chains  and 
swastikas  and  things  stuck  in  their  head, 
and  I  was,  like,  "Oh  my  God,  what  have 
we  created?"  I  think  English  punk  was 
much  more  volatile  and  edgy  and  more 
dangerous. 

DANNY  FIELDS:   I  was  1    . 

Sex  Pistols  in  the  press,  think'       This  is 

trouble.  They  interfered  with 

52 


mones  agenda.  They  were  just  diverting 
attention  and  energy  from  what  we  were 
doing.  They  were  inspired  by  Iggy  [Pop] 
and  the  Stooges.  The  first  song  that  the 
Sex  Pistols  played  was  "I  Wanna  Be 
Your  Dog,"  the  greatest  punk  song  ever 
written  to  this  day.  Malcolm's  strategy 
for  the  Pistols  was  the  theory  of  chaos. 
They  put  safety  pins  in  the  Queen's  nose 
and  they  would  vomit  and  curse  and  say 
it's  the  end  of  the  world.  I  always  say 
when  the  music  moves  from  the  music 
section  to  the  front  page  of  the  newspa- 
per you're  in  trouble. 

BOB  GRUEN:  Traveling  with  the  Sex  Pis- 
tols was  a  contrast  to  their  concerts.  Their 
shows  were  complete  chaos,  but  the  bus 
was  actually  mellow.  Mostly  we  drank 
beer,  passed  joints,  and  listened  to  dub- 
reggae  music.  At  one  stop,  Johnny  Rot- 
ten [real  name,  John  Lydon;  former 
singer  for  the  Sex  Pistols  and  later  Public 

"Punk  felt  like 
this  phony  media  thing. 
It  had  become 
everything  we  hated.'7 


SID'S  WAY 

Sid  Vicious  of  the  Sex  Pistols  performing 

in  Memphis  in  1978,  on  the 

group's  final  tour.  One  year  later  he  was 

Jcad  of  an  overdose. 


Image  Ltd.]  opened  a  window  and  leaned 
out.  The  fans  came  running  over.  A  kid 
held  up  an  album  and  begged,  "Would 
you  autograph  this  for  me?"  Johnny  just 
leaned  over  and  spat  on  it.  The  kid  said, 
"Wow,  man,  thank  you!  I  can't  believe  it! 
Thank  you  so  much!"  That's  when  I 
started  thinking.  This  is  not  normal. 

LEGS  McNEIL:  After  four  years  of  doing 
this  thing  called  punk,  and  basically  get- 
ting laughed  at,  suddenly  everything  was 
"punk!"  As  the  Pistols  made  their  way 
across  America,  the  hysteria  was  broad- 
cast on  the  news  every  night.  Kids  were 
suddenly  transforming  themselves  with 
safety  pins,  spiked  haircuts,  and  ugliness. 
I  was,  like,  "What  is  this  shit?"  After  all, 
we  were  Punk  magazine.  We  had  come 
up  with  the  name  and  had  defined  punk 
as  this  underground  American  rock  'n' 
roll  culture  that  had  existed  for  almost  15 
years.  So  it  was,  like,  "Hey,  if  you  want 
to  go  start  your  own  youth  movement, 
fine,  but  this  one's  already  taken."  But 
the  answer  that  came  back  was  "Oh,  you 
wouldn't  understand.  Punk  started  in  En- 
gland. You  know,  everyone  is  on  the  dole 
there.  Punk  is  really  about  class  warfare 
and  economic  blah,  blah,  blah." 

DANNY  FIELDS:  The  Sex  Pistols  were 
on  Walter  Cronkite  every  night!  I  mean, 
can  you  imagine  the  marketing,  the  hype! 
He  would  say,  "They're  now  arriving  in 
America."  But  they  didn't  really  do  any- 
thing radical  in  terms  of  getting  on  the 
CBS  seven-o'clock  news.  What  they  did 
radical  was  in  terms  of  music,  which  no 
one  really  appreciated.  They  were  fa- 
|  mous  for  the  wrong  reasons. 

BOB  GRUEN:  We  went  to  this  gay 
store  in  San  Francisco,  and  Sid  [Vi- 
cious, late  Sex  Pistols  bassist]  bought 
some  lubricant  and  put  it  all  in  his 
hair  and  his  hair  was  sticking  up,  and 
Johnny    Rotten    said,    "Great,    Sid. 
Now  you  can  stick  your  head  up 
somebody's  ass." 

LEGS  McNEIL:  The  Pistols  sucked 
at  [the  San  Francisco  club]  Win- 
terland,  but  it  didn't  seem  to 
matter.  Everyone  was  just 
thrilled  to  be  in  the  presence 
of  the  Sex  Pistols.  Bob  Gruen 
troduced  me  to  the  band.  Every 
one  of  them  looked  miserable.  Sid 
sat  in  a  chair  with  his  shirt  off.  Johnny 
was  alone  on  a  couch  muttering  to  him- 
self. Steve  [Jones,  Sex  Pistols  guitarist] 
and  Paul  [Cook,  drummer]  were  loung- 
ing next  to  a  plastic  garbage  pail  filled 

VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


with   Heinekens.    Sid   had   pulled 
four  chicks  from   the  audience, 
and    the    four    girls    were   just 
standing  around.  Everyone  was 
ignoring  them.  Sid  turned  to  them 
and  said,  "So  who's  gonna  fuck  me 
tonight?" 

Just    then    Annie    Leibovitz,    the 
Rolling  Stone  photographer  [currently 
a  Vanity  Fair  contributing  photograph- 
er], and  an  assistant  carrying  boxes,  ca- 
bles, and  white  umbrellas  came  barging 
in  and  began  setting  up  the  equipment 
in  the  bathroom.  She  said,  "Ah,  excuse 
me  .  .  .  Johnny,  could  we  get  you  in 
here  for  a  shot  with  Sid?" 

"Fuck  him,"  Johnny  said.  "Tell  the 
wanker  to  come  over  here!" 

"O.K.,  then,  Johnny,  can  I  get 
you  in  the  bathroom  alone?" 

"Piss  off!" 

"But  it's  for  the  cover  of 
Rolling  Stone  magazine,"  Lei- 
bovitz said. 

"well,  then,  is  my  hair  ai 
right?"  Johnny  shrieked  as  he 
pulled  on  his  greasy,  matted  hair 
so    that    it    formed    two    little 
horns.  It  was  pretty  funny,  but 
overall  the  whole  scene  was 
pretty  depressing.  The  Sex 
Pistols  didn't  seem  to  be 
having    any    fun.    So    I 
loaded  up  my  jacket  with 
Heinekens  and  split.  I  didn't 
know  it  at  the  time,  but  that 
was  the  last  few  moments  of  the 
Sex  Pistols'  existence. 

BOB  GRUEN:  When  I  got  back  to  New 
York,  I  felt  pressured  because  tons  of 
magazines  were  going  to  be  doing  big 
features  on  the  Sex  Pistols.  I  went  over 
to  CBGB's.  I  walked  in,  and  Johnny 
Rotten  was  there.  He  said,  "Did  you 
hear  the  news?"  He  showed  me  his 
T-shirt  that  said,  "I  survived  the  Sex  Pis- 
tols tour."  Johnny  had  written  on  his 
shirt  "But  the  band  didn't."  I  said,  "Well, 
what  does  that  mean?"  He  said,  "What 
do  you  think?  This  is  it.  We  broke  up."  I 
said,  "What  do  you  mean,  you  broke 
up?"  I  had  just  invested  two  weeks  and  a 
lot  of  money  into  these  pictures.  He  said, 
"That's  it.  Malcolm  and  the  rest  of  the 
guys  went  off  to  Brazil,  and  I'm  here. 
We're  not  doing  it  anymore." 

They  were  the  biggest  band  in  the 
world  and  they  just  broke  up.  Every- 
thing just  seemed  to  be  the  opposite  with 
that  band  all  the  time. 

DANNY  FIELDS:  When  the  Sex  Pistols 
broke  up  in  San  Francisco,  it  showed 


TRANSFORMERS 

Joey  Ramone  of  the  Ramones 

and  Debbie  Harry,  photographed  for  Punk 

magazine,  1977.  Below  Andy  Warhol, 

Lou  Reed,  and  Danny  Fields  at 

the  Bottom  Line  in  New  York,  1978. 


'The  Ramones 
were  like  us.  They  talked 
about  comics  and 
60s  bubblegum  music." 


that  this  punk  thing  wasn't  viable.  They 
were  meant  to  self-destruct,  and  so 
what's  the  point  in  investing  in  any  of 
them?  Why  institutionalize  them  if  it's 
their  nature  to  destroy  others  and  to  de- 
stroy themselves?  The  whole  thing  just 
got  out  of  control,  and  whatever  chance 
the  Ramones  had  to  get  on  the  radio 
based  on  the  merit  of  the  music  was  then 
wiped  out  by  the  Sex  Pistols,  because  it 
became  too  hot  to  handle.  American  ra- 
dio, then  as  now,  doesn't  like  to  partici- 
pate in  anything  that  is  dangerous  or 
revolutionary  or  radical. 

LEGS  McNEIL:  Now  "punk"  was  being 
used  to  describe  something  the  world 
thought  of  as  English.  Overnight,  punk 


had  become  as  stupid  as  everything 
else.  This  wonderful  vital  force  was 
about  advocating  [that]  kids 
not  wait  to  be  told  what  to 
do— that  real  creativity  came 
out  of  making  a  mess— about 
turning  everything  embarrass- 
ing, awful,  and  stupid  in  your  life 
to  your  advantage.  But  after  the 
Sex  Pistols  tour,  I  had  no  inter- 
est in  doing  Punk  magazine.  It 
just  felt  like  this  phony  media 
thing.  Punk  wasn't  ours  any- 
|   more.  It  had  become  every- 
thing we  hated.  It  seemed  like 
it  had  become  everything  we 
had  started  the  magazine  to 
rage  against.  So  Holmstrom 
found  a  new  resident  punk.  I  was 
replaced.  But  I  didn't  care.  It  was  over. 

hough  punk  continued  for  a 
short  while  with  bands  such  as 
the  Damned  and  the  Buzzcocks, 
it  never  regained  its  former  momen- 
tum. In  1978,  Sid  Vicious  was 
charged  with  stabbing  his  girlfriend, 
Nancy  Spungen,  to  death  in  the 
Chelsea  Hotel  in  New  York,  and  four 
months  later  he  died  of  a  heroin  over- 
dose. The  grisly  events  underscored  the 
excesses  inherent  in  the  movement.  Yet 
in  Britain  it  had  many  disciples,  most  no- 
tably the  Clash  and  the  Jam,  politically 
inspired  bands  which  survived  into  the 
80s.  In  America,  punk  never  fully  recov- 
ered. Television  broke  up  in  1978.  In 
1979,  Patti  Smith  went  into  retirement 
for  nine  years.  The  Heartbreakers,  which 
included  former  Dolls  musicians,  stopped 
recording  in  the  mid-80s.  But  now,  a  dec- 
ade after  the  1986  film  Sid  and  Nancy, 
some  of  punk's  survivors  have  returned. 
In  1992,  Television  re-formed  and  re- 
leased a  new  album.  Punk  writer  Mary 
Harron's  /  Shot  Andy  Warhol  was  re- 
leased in  May.  This  month  Richard  Hell 
is  publishing  his  first  novel,  Go  Now; 
Patti  Smith  is  releasing  a  new  album, 
Gone  Again;  the  Sex  Pistols— along  with 
their  original  bassist,  Glen  Matlock— are 
starting  a  world  tour;  and  a  collection 
of  the  best  of  Punk  magazine,  which 
ceased  publication  in  1981,  is  being  is- 
sued. The  Ramones  say  they  will  play 
their  last  concert  this  August  on  the 
Lollapalooza  tour.  □ 


VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


53 


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meteorological  phenomeh  *f  ^eatherperson, 

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sector 


Left,  Jackie  Gleason  and  Toots  Shor  compare 
midriffs  in  1958;  below,  Shor  and  Joe  DiMaggio; 
bottom,  then-New  York  State  attorney 
general  Jacob  Javits,  Shor,  and  Margaret  Truman 
at  Yankee  Stadium  in  1955. 


ong  ago  Toots  Shor 
and  the  fabled  gin  mill 
that  bore  his  name  be- 
Hm  came  members  of  the 
Apocrypha  Club,  where,  eter- 
nally, Yogi  Berra  swaps  mala- 
propisms  with  Casey  Stengel,  Oscar 
Wilde  verbally  fences  with  Jimmy  Whis- 
tler, and  Dorothy  Parker  talks  with,  well, 
anyone  at  all.  The  restaurant  opened  in 
April  1940  at  51  West  51st  Street.  (It  was 
to  have  two  more  bona  fide  incarnations 
and,  in  the  end,  three  locations  that 
merely  traded  on  Shor's  name.)  It  opened 
on  a  shoestring,  but  Shor  was  partial  to 
shoestrings.  As  he  was  about  to  go  in  the 
front  door  he  took  the  40  cents  he  had  to 
his  name  and  threw  it  down  Sixth  Av- 
enue. He  later  explained,  "I  wanted  to  go 
in  flat-pocket  and  start  from  scratch." 

In  the  Manhattan  of  the  40s  and  50s, 
Toots  Shor's  was  the  celebrity  joint  of 
choice,  counting  among  its  august  clien- 
tele Ernest  Hemingway,  Frank  Sinatra, 
Jackie  Gleason,  Harry  Truman,  Bob 
Hope,  Jimmy  Cannon,  Eddy  Duchin. 

VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


TOOTS  SHOR 

In  40s  and 

50s  Manhattan, 

Toots  Shor's  West  51st 

Street  gin  mill  drew 

everyone  from 

Ernest  Hemingway  to 

Joe  DiMaggio 

BY  RICHARD  MERKIN 


Georgie  Jessel,  former  mayor  Jimmy 
Walker,  George  Raft,  Joe  DiMaggio, 
J.  Edgar  Hoover,  Mark  Hellinger,  Red 
Smith,  Earl  Wilson,  and  Sir  Alexander 
Fleming.  (Women  were  not  encour- 
aged—on general  principles,  one 
presumes.) 

If  the  decor  was  modest  in 
appearance,  the  saloonkeeper 
wasn't.  Six  feet  two  and  beefy, 
Shor  was,  at  once,  outrageously 
generous  and  kind  and  capable 
of  a  colossal  arrogance.  One 
night  Charlie  Chaplin  was  wait- 
ing on  line,  a  situation  that 
would  have  called  for  an  imme- 
diate seating  at  any  other  hot 
spot  in  New  York.  "It'll  be  20 
minutes,  Charlie,"  Toots  said. 
"Be  funny  for  the  people."  On 
another  occasion  Louis  B. 
Mayer  tired  of  the  wait.  In  a 
loud  voice  he  said  to  his  com- 
panion, "This  is  a  nice  room  here.  I 
hope  the  food  is  good."  Toots  turned 
and,  with  a  sneer,  said,  "I've  seen  some 
of  ya  pitchas." 

Six  years  before  Toots  died  in  1977, 
one  of  the  original  locations  was  pad- 
locked for  unpaid  income  taxes.  Specu- 
lation upon  the  cause  of  the  demise  was 
rampant.  But  Toots  Shor's  closed  be- 
cause the  Tootsian  sentiment  "Any  bum 
who  can't  get  drunk  by  midnight  ain't 
tryin'"  was  no  longer  a  popular  senti- 
ment. Toots  Shor's  folded  finally  be- 
cause hangovers  were  no  longer  fashion- 
able. Shor's  time  was  a  simpler  one,  a 
time  of  chorus  girls  and  baggy  flannel 
baseball  uniforms  and  bespoke  Peal's 
shoes,  when,  as  Fitzgerald  put  it,  "we 
still  believed  in  summer  hotels  and  the 
philosophies  of  popular  songs."  □ 

57 


• — • 


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40%  ALC.  VOL.  (80  PROOF)    1  LITR 

IMPORTED 

PRODUCED  AND  BOTTLED  IN  AHUS,  SWEDEN 
BY  V&S  vin&SPRIT  AB 


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AND  ABSOLUT  CALLIGRAPH1ARE  TRADEMARKS  OWNED  BY  V&S  VIN  &  SPRIT  AB.  ©1996  V&S  VIN  &  SPRIT  AB.  IMPORTED  BY  THE  HOUSE  OF  SEAGRAM.  NEW  YORK.  NY  PHOTOGRAPH  BY  STEVE  BR0NSTEIN. 

i. ':  THOSE  WHO  APPRECIATE  QUALITY  ENJOY  IT  RESPONSIBLY. 


And  so  they've  set  out  their  chivalrous  case. 
Secretly  in  hope  of  her  fond  embrace, 
Pointing  up  gravely  where  principle  lies, 
Yet  prisoners  all  to  her  panda  eyes. 


It's  now  past  the  sacred  hour  of  seven 
And  Di  is  late  for  her  muscled  heaven. 
Her  pulse  quickens  for  the  Harbour  Club  dash 
But  without  the  car  that  was  last  week's  crash. 
Indeed,  on  these  rapid  journeys  of  Di's, 
One's  always  quite  thankful  when  she  arrives. 
Which  now  she  does  on  pairs  of  borrowed 

wheels, 

Stirring  journalists  from  their  take-out  meals. 
They  swarm  like  a  minor  plague  of  locusts, 
Barbour  jackets  flapping,  cameras  focused, 
Chasing  with  questions  their  helpless  quarry: 
"About  the  divorce,  ma'am:  are  you  sorry?" 
She  makes  for  the  door  with  sprinting  vigor, 
Star-spangled  jerkin  hinting  her  figure. 
Cameras  whir  with  their  tiresome  menace 
At  subject  more  snapped  than  ever  Venice, 
And  with  speed  of  light  her  form  is  set  frozen, 
Locked  behind  shutters  in  frames  not  yet  chosen. 

She  arrives  at  the  gym  warmed  up  nicely, 
Starts  the  stretch  routine,  designed  precisely 
By  Carolan  Brown,  personal  trainer, 
Who  always  in  shape  tried  to  maintain  her. 
Now  she  strips  down  to  plain  Lycra  bodice 
Which  first  drew  Carling's  eyes  so  immodest. 
O  strapping  arms!  How  he  wished  he'd 

kissed  them 
As  Springsteen's  music  pumped  through 

the  system. 
So  the  pressure  is  piled  and  pleasure  soars 
As  Di  pulls  mighty  on  waterless  oars, 
Then  trips  to  weighted  Nautilus  machine. 
There  to  make  perfect  her  muscles  unseen. 
These  clubs  are,  indeed,  shrines  to  vanity, 
Prone  to  build  on  sinews,  not  sanity, 
Where  endomorphs  are  most  sternly  defied, 
And  ecstatic  rush  dependably  supplied. 
But  in  storing  up  adrenal  surplus 
Di  has  a  more  particular  purpose 
And  now  considers  while  lifting  a  weight 
The  meeting  she  has  with  the  head  of  state. 

After  hours  of  toil  and  calorie  loss 

Di  speeds  emboldened  to  visit  The  Boss. 

A  gap  in  her  diary  has  been  created 

Between  appointments  she  had  inflated, 

And  skipping  tarot-card  and  colon  dates 

She's  waved  on  through  the  open  palace  gates. 

There  a  convertible  prompts  her  surprise, 

Signaling  a  presence  never  apprised 

Of  husband  estranged,  the  heir  to  the  throne, 

Which  means  that  the  Queen  will  not  be 

alone. 
Suddenly,  Di  and  Charles  are  face-to-face. 
Clinching  quickly  in  a  fumbled  embrace- 
Look,  these  aren't  titans  or  battling  giants, 
Just  humans  trapped  in  deadly  alliance. 


Now  the  room's  grown  thick  with  apology; 

Di  distracts  with  talk  of  astrology, 

Then  healing  powers  of  a  holy  sister, 

Which  helps  him  see  why  he  never  missed  her, 

Nor,  indeed,  the  appalling  tedium 

Of  wife  in  flow  on  psychic  medium. 

Of  course,  he'd  choose  the  Gothic  Revival 

To  take  them  up  to  the  Queen's  arrival. 

Soon  his  mother  comes  with  frigid  manner, 
Gives  formal  greetings  to  dear  Diana, 
And  starts  to  make  a  most  compelling  case 
For  restoration  of  the  public's  faith. 
The  terms  and  conditions  on  the  table 
Place  restrictions  on  how  Di  is  able 
To  bring  up  the  two  princes  postdivorce, 
And  where  she  will  live— in  England, 

of  course! 
These  include  an  acutely  worded  stress 
On  the  future  form  of  her  royal  address. 
For  Beth  is  resolved  that  Di's  ovation 
Should  now  be  hushed  with  a  year's  probation. 
On  money,  the  Queen  describes  all  she  lacks, 
Making  much  of  how  she  must  now  pay  tax: 
There  is  not  the  cash  in  the  royal  coffer 
To  make  more  than  just  this  modest  offer. 

Di  listens  in  a  respectful  silence, 
Her  mind  seething  with  inward  violence, 
And  before  her  now  she  sees  a  trade-off 
Of  being  dismissed  without  being  paid  off. 
But  this  is  not  simply  a  business  rift, 
More  like  a  sort  of  continental  drift, 
A  process— inch  by  inch  and  day  by  day— 
In  which  parties  go  their  separate  way. 


All  of  it  will  doubtless  soon  be  settled, 
And  Di's  pride,  so  honorably  nettled, 
Her  future  role,  so  furiously  fought, 
Will  count  for  little  in  a  dusty  court. 

But  I  digress:  The  meeting  has  ended; 
Ignoble  dealing  is  now  suspended. 
And  this  passage  in  Diana's  story 
Closes  with  a  brief,  resistant  glory. 
For  us  there  is  still  one  matter  in  hand. 
More  dire  and  ugly  than  the  morning's  span. 
While  Di  is  cradled  by  Ms.  Orbach's  care 
And  lulled  to  confide  in  the  tall-back  chair, 
Prints  come  to  life  in  developing  tray, 
Dappled  light  reveals  and  shadows  betray 
A  defect  which  is  surprisingly  Di's— 
The  dimpled  effect  at  the  back  of  her  thighs. 
Soon  the  picture  will  be  auctioned  and  bought 
To  wrap  up  with  news  and  Saturday  sport 
And  there  removing  from  the  royal  closet 
Bleak  evidence  of  fatty  deposit. 
And  contained  in  these  films— I  do  not  mock- 
Is  the  very  modern  Rape  of  the  Lock. 
Much  worse  than  stealing  severed  loops  and  curls 
Has  been  effected  by  these  tabloid  churls, 
Who  used  to  advertise  their  scandal  sheets 
By  asking  why  the  Princess  never  eats. 
Now  with  a  casual  and  oafish  glee 
They  hint  at  age  and  signs  of  eating  spree. 
So  here  is  the  point,  in  case  it's  missed  you: 
Fat  is  more  than  a  feminist  issue. 
And  with  this  final  thought  I  bid  good-bye 
And  a  fond  farewell  to  our  ravished  Di, 
Hoping  this  verse  has  not  her  offended 
And  rhyme  and  reason  are  aptly  blended.  □ 


63 


m> 


ik 


Where  is  the  English  bard  to  immortalize 

the  travails  of  the  Princess  of  Wales?  With  apologies  to  Pope, 

HENRY  PORTER  picks  up  his  lute  and  enters  the  fray 


"What  dire  offense  from  am'rous  causes 

springs? 
What  mighty  contests  rise  from  trivial  things?" 
Thus  England's  gnomish  Pope  did  once 

exclaim 
When  youthful  beauty's  curls  were  grossly 

maimed, 
And  gave  then  to  our  glad  aesthetic  stock 
His  rhymed  account  of  swiftly  severed  lock. 
He  obliged  the  once  tame  and  gentler  sex 
With  cunning  sweetness  of  his  versed  effects, 
Mocking  sharp  and  all  well-mannered  malice, 
Englishmen  polite,  though  coldly  callous. 
Now  two  hundred  years  have  gone  by  and  more, 
And  we  see  clearly  what  then  young  Pope  saw— 
A  parody  of  England's  regal  might. 
With  court  beset  by  rumor,  doubt,  and  spite. 


There  in  the  eye  of  a  foul,  dark'ning  storm 
Stands  a  princess,  chic  and  to  shopping  born, 
Admired  and  still  in  fitting  vernal  prime 
But  lowered  now  by  photographic  crime. 
Not  Sarah,  the  stout  and  bubbly  sinner 
With  spending  itch  of  lottery  winner. 
But  Di,  the  virgin  bride  and  Queen  of  Hearts, 
Who  has  played  her  royal  cards  with 
ruthless  arts, 


And  'neath  her  shy,  winning,  and 

girlish  glance 
Has  led  Queen  Beth  on  such  a  merry  dance. 
Gliding  from  gym-crazed  fitness  obsession 
To  Orbach's  therapeutic  confession, 
Di  plots  a  course  so  perilous  between 
Public  favor  and  all  its  vengeful  spleen. 
Thus  far  the  winds  have  blown  in  her  direction 
And  backed  her  cause  with  a  warm  affection.- 
Yet  will  the  strain  soon  begin  to  ail  her, 
Bringing  rats  to  scent  the  air  for  failure? 
And  does  her  lonely  siege  so  dire  indeed 
Give  frantic  signal  of  Di's  hour  of  need? 

Draw  near  now  to  prowl  in  ghostly  trespass, 
Far  beyond  the  reach  of  standard  press  pass, 
And  gaze  upon  Di's  whirring,  dream-filled 

head 
That  rests  in  silk  and  soft,  embroidered  bed. 
'Neath  three  rampant  feathers  of  the  royal  crest 
Mem'ries  rise  sharply  on  a  curtained  breast. 
A  strap  has  slipped  from  ivory  shoulder, 
But  our  spectral  eyes  must  grow  no  bolder! 
Look  only  at  her  quiet,  unconscious  charm 
And  how  light  falls  on  one  Nautilized  arm, 
Then  touches  with  heav'nly  refulgent  glint 
Sam  McKnight's  daily  hundred-guinea  tint. 

What  other  head  has  lain  here— 

Heaven  knows!— 
And  been  wont  to  kiss  those  manicured  toes? 
Yet  to  woo  in  these  so  formal  chambers 
Carries  much  more  than  average  dangers. 
For  still  in  this  modern  age  of  reason 
Bedding  Di  is  seen  as  highest  treason, 
And  all  hotheaded  pursuers  of  royal  sex 
Should  now  watch  carefully  their  common 

necks. 
I  mention  Will  Carling  and  Ollie  Hoare, 
Though  each  has  denied  the  glamorous  score; 
Bu1:  James  Hewitt,  who  to  the  press  has  sung. 
May  yet— as  they  say— be  really  well  hung. 

We  must  leave  talk  of  this  priv'leged  phallus 
To  move  crosstown  to  another  palace. 
Where  Her  Majesty,  the  resplendent  Queen, 
Has  the  morning  papers  already  seen 


Illustrations  by  TIM  SHEAFFER 


■namn 


And  is  looking  more  than  usually  sour. 
Pacing  pregnant  with  monarchic  power. 
Just  as  she  plans  from  court  to  erase  her, 
Di  appears  like  a  Mother  Teresa, 
Helping  in  some  grim,  compassionate  task. 
Watching  hearts  repaired  'hind  surgical  mask. 
"Really!"  says  the  cold  and  majestic  voice, 
"She  has  got  to  go— I've  no  other  choice! 
While  Rome  burns  and  Windsor  Castle  singes. 
She  slips  'tween  sainthood  and  shopping 
binges!" 


Returning  apace  to  the  Kensington  scene, 
We  find  Di  wakening  from  world  of  dream. 
Like  some  startled  antelope  she  rises. 
Innocent  of  the  world's  cruel  surprises, 
And  makes  for  her  mirrored  boudoir  table 
Fondly  to  regard  the  reflected  fable. 
She's  still  the  picture  of  uncommon  health; 
Nothing  has  yet  come  of  Time's  nightly 

stealth. 
No  lines  are  wrote  by  age  since  last  she 

gazed— 
No  tucks,  no  creases,  not  a  pimple  raised! 
Of  this  favored  glass  she  should  ask  no  more 
Than  to  show  its  mistress  the  hidden  flaw 
Which  lurks  unseen  beneath  her  spandex 

shorts. 
Worn  now  in  readiness  for  health-club  sports. 

She  brings  her  mind  to  bear  on  worldly  ills, 
Swallows  water  and  supplement'ry  pills. 
One  of  which  will  ease  that  lonely  station: 
For  Di  has  just  joined  the  Prozac  Nation. 
Her  thoughts  do  speed  in  repetitive  whirl 
As  she  clips  to  each  ear  a  single  pearl. 
And  there  she  stays  without  ever  turning 
To  consider  all  those  issues  burning: 
What  it's  like  to  be  a  global  icon. 
With  each  movement  watched  by  prying 

Nikon; 
How  to  keep  the  favor  of  the  masses. 
Yet  cold  distance  of  Jacqueline  Onassis; 
How  to  handle  Her  Majesty's  lawyers. 
Who  come  as  from  a  painting  of  Goya's 


62 


To  speak  of  money,  access,  and  title. 
Plus  the  welfare  of  her  princes  vital. 
These  thoughts  circle  with  less  crucial  matters. 
Such  as  Armani  and  the  royal  hatters, 
Chanel.  Ferragamo,  and  Calvin  KJein, 
Not  to  mention  Herrera's  frocks  sublime. 
Lord!  how  she  wished  she  could  leave  these 

worries. 
The  pressure  of  endless  legal  flurries. 
And  stay  forever  in  far  Pakistan 
With  the  fair  Jemima  and  Imran  Khan. 
But  now  she's  calmed  by  a  heavenly  peace 
As  merciful  Prozac  begins  release. 

Less  peaceful  is  the  stately  breakfast  room 
Where  Queen  Beth  is  served  in  menacing 

gloom 
And  steadily  regards  one  soft-boiled  egg 
As  ill-tempered  corgis  dispute  and  beg. 
Beth's  determined  that  without  more  delay 
Di  should  be  summoned  on  this  very  day 
And  given  those  terms  most  artfully- 
hatched 
Which  saw  young  Sarah  so  neatly  dispatched. 
Now  in  frightening  and  resolute  mood 
Her  mind  and  desire  begin  to  collude. 
And.  seeing  not  an  egg  but  Di  instead, 
She  wields  a  knife,  crying,  "Off  with  her  head!" 

A  seething  silence  Queen  Beth  now  maintains. 
As  Philip  and  Charles  dab  at  egg-yolk  stains. 
Snapping  corgis  arrest  their  canine  brawl 
And  footmen  glide  out  through  the  green 

baize  door. 
All  feel  the  atmosphere  so  appalling- 
Even  a  bug  on  the  window  stops  crawling. 
Then  she  summons  (in  her  chilliest  tone) 
The  presence,  please,  of  her  portable  phone. 
She  dials  and  gets  through  on  a  private  line 
To  fix  a  meeting  at  quarter  past  nine. 
Then  slow  she  turns  to  both  heir  and  consort. 
To  unburden  the  following  onslaught: 
"The  girl  has  no  trace  of  royal  breeding- 
She  won't  cancel  her  tarot-card  reading! 
And  then— what  a  chronic  irritation!— 
Her  colon  is  booked  for  irrigation." 

Avert  your  eyes  from  ensuing  actions 
To  reflect  now  on  the  warring  factions. 
Where  the  first  side  of  two  disputing  halves 
Dresses  for  the  contest  in  Hermes  scarves. 


These  are  known  as  the  Gucci  guerrillas. 
Or  hunting  pals  of  Charles  and  Camilla's 
Who  dwell  on  moors,  streams,  and  Scotti 

heather. 
Killing  foxes,  fish,  and  birds  together. 
Their  blood,  of  course,  is  a  near-perfect  bl 
If  not,  they  tend  to  add  a  name  or  two— 
And  their  code  of  honor  is  crystal-clear: 
Never  submit  to  the  therapist's  ear, 
Never  succumb  to  the  media's  guiles, 
And  never  stoop  to  indignant  denials! 
In  short  they're  greater  than  their  sum  of  f 
Much  heartier  than  any  Queen  of  Hearts 
As  genuine  as  England's  rare  roast  beef- 
And  true  as  Camilla's  upper  front  teeth. 

And  what  on  Diana's  side  do  we  find? 
Those  many  gentlemen  who've  been  so  k> 
To  dust  off  dear  Don  Quixote's  armor 
And  tilt  at  critics  who  mean  to  harm  her. 
Swelling— nay,  even  tumescent— with  prid 
They  have  leapt  to  defend  the  virgin  bridt 
Once  girlish  wife,  then  dutiful  mother 
But  never,  it  seems,  Charles's  cherished  k 
They  say  what  brought  her  gentle  spirits  d 
Were  the  fixed  labors  of  the  social  round.: 
(To  spend  a  Christmas  with  all  regal  borr 
Is  like  knitting  socks  while  your  teeth  are. 

drawn.) 
Who  could  dare  blame  her  for  the  meals 

she  missed 
While  Charles  disported  on  amorous  trys: 
And  what  of  bulimia  and  fainting  fits 
While  husband  dabbled  with  his  painting:' 


b! 


(And  so  they've  set  out  their  chivalrous  case. 
|Secretly  in  hope  of  her  fond  embrace, 
'Pointing  up  gravely  where  principle  lies, 
Yet  prisoners  all  to  her  panda  eyes. 


2S 

It's  now  past  the  sacred  hour  of  seven 
And  Di  is  late  for  her  muscled  heaven. 
I  Her  pulse  quickens  for  the  Harbour  Club  dash 
But  without  the  car  that  was  last  week's  crash, 
i  Indeed,  on  these  rapid  journeys  of  Di's, 
}  One's  always  quite  thankful  when  she  arrives, 
f  Which  now  she  does  on  pairs  of  borrowed 

wheels, 
I  Stirring  journalists  from  their  take-out  meals. 
They  swarm  like  a  minor  plague  of  locusts, 
IBarbour  jackets  flapping,  cameras  focused, 
Chasing  with  questions  their  helpless  quarry: 
'About  the  divorce,  ma'am:  are  you  sorry?" 
She  makes  for  the  door  with  sprinting  vigor, 
Star-spangled  jerkin  hinting  her  figure. 
Cameras  whir  with  their  tiresome  menace 
i  At  subject  more  snapped  than  ever  Venice, 
'And  with  speed  of  light  her  form  is  set  frozen, 
*  Locked  behind  shutters  in  frames  not  yet  chosen. 

i 

I  She  arrives  at  the  gym  warmed  up  nicely, 
Starts  the  stretch  routine,  designed  precisely 
By  Carolan  Brown,  personal  trainer, 
Who  always  in  shape  tried  to  maintain  her. 
I  Now  she  strips  down  to  plain  Lycra  bodice 
Which  first  drew  Carting's  eyes  so  immodest. 
O  strapping  arms!  How  he  wished  he'd 

kissed  them 
As  Springsteen's  music  pumped  through 

the  system. 
So  the  pressure  is  piled  and  pleasure  soars 
As  Di  pulls  mighty  on  waterless  oars, 
Then  trips  to  weighted  Nautilus  machine. 
There  to  make  perfect  her  muscles  unseen. 
These  clubs  are,  indeed,  shrines  to  vanity, 
Prone  to  build  on  sinews,  not  sanity, 
Where  endomorphs  are  most  sternly  defied, 
And  ecstatic  rush  dependably  supplied. 
But  in  storing  up  adrenal  surplus 
Di  has  a  more  particular  purpose 
And  now  considers  while  lifting  a  weight 
The  meeting  she  has  with  the  head  of  state. 

After  hours  of  toil  and  calorie  loss 

Di  speeds  emboldened  to  visit  The  Boss. 

A  gap  in  her  diary  has  been  created 

Between  appointments  she  had  inflated, 

And  skipping  tarot-card  and  colon  dates 

She's  waved  on  through  the  open  palace  gates. 

There  a  convertible  prompts  her  surprise, 

Signaling  a  presence  never  apprised 

Of  husband  estranged,  the  heir  to  the  throne, 

Which  means  that  the  Queen  will  not  be 

alone. 
Suddenly,  Di  and  Charles  are  face-to-face. 
Clinching  quickly  in  a  fumbled  embrace 
Look,  these  aren't  titans  or  battling  giants, 
Just  humans  trapped  in  deadly  alliance. 


Now  the  room's  grown  thick  with  apology; 

Di  distracts  with  talk  of  astrology, 

Then  healing  powers  of  a  holy  sister, 

Which  helps  him  see  why  he  never  missed  her, 

Nor,  indeed,  the  appalling  tedium 

Of  wife  in  flow  on  psychic  medium. 

Of  course,  he'd  choose  the  Gothic  Revival 

To  take  them  up  to  the  Queen's  arrival. 

Soon  his  mother  comes  with  frigid  manner, 
Gives  formal  greetings  to  dear  Diana, 
And  starts  to  make  a  most  compelling  case 
For  restoration  of  the  public's  faith. 
The  terms  and  conditions  on  the  table 
Place  restrictions  on  how  Di  is  able 
To  bring  up  the  two  princes  postdivorce, 
And  where  she  will  live— in  England, 

of  course! 
These  include  an  acutely  worded  stress 
On  the  future  form  of  her  royal  address. 
For  Beth  is  resolved  that  Di's  ovation 
Should  now  be  hushed  with  a  year's  probation. 
On  money,  the  Queen  describes  all  she  lacks. 
Making  much  of  how  she  must  now  pay  tax: 
There  is  not  the  cash  in  the  royal  coffer 
To  make  more  than  just  this  modest  offer. 

Di  listens  in  a  respectful  silence, 
Her  mind  seething  with  inward  violence, 
And  before  her  now  she  sees  a  trade-off 
Of  being  dismissed  without  being  paid  off. 
But  this  is  not  simply  a  business  rift, 
More  like  a  sort  of  continental  drift, 
A  process    inch  by  inch  and  day  by  day— 
In  which  parties  go  their  separate  way. 


All  of  it  will  doubtless  soon  be  settled, 
And  Di's  pride,  so  honorably  nettled, 
Her  future  role,  so  furiously  fought, 
Will  count  for  little  in  a  dusty  court. 

But  I  digress:  The  meeting  has  ended; 
Ignoble  dealing  is  now  suspended. 
And  this  passage  in  Diana's  story 
Closes  with  a  brief,  resistant  glory. 
For  us  there  is  still  one  matter  in  hand. 
More  dire  and  ugly  than  the  morning's  span. 
While  Di  is  cradled  by  Ms.  Orbach's  care 
And  lulled  to  confide  in  the  tall-back  chair, 
Prints  come  to  life  in  developing  tray, 
Dappled  light  reveals  and  shadows  betray 
A  defect  which  is  surprisingly  Di's— 
The  dimpled  effect  at  the  back  of  her  thighs. 
Soon  the  picture  will  be  auctioned  and  bought 
To  wrap  up  with  news  and  Saturday  sport 
And  there  removing  from  the  royal  closet 
Bleak  evidence  of  fatty  deposit. 
And  contained  in  these  films— I  do  not  mock- 
Is  the  very  modern  Rape  of  the  Lock. 
Much  worse  than  stealing  severed  loops  and  curls 
Has  been  effected  by  these  tabloid  churls, 
Who  used  to  advertise  their  scandal  sheets 
By  asking  why  the  Princess  never  eats. 
Now  with  a  casual  and  oafish  glee 
They  hint  at  age  and  signs  of  eating  spree. 
So  here  is  the  point,  in  case  it's  missed  you: 
Fat  is  more  than  a  feminist  issue. 
And  with  this  final  thought  I  bid  good-bye 
And  a  fond  farewell  to  our  ravished  Di, 
Hoping  this  verse  has  not  her  offended 
And  rhyme  and  reason  are  aptly  blended.  □ 


63 


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FRAGRANCES 


T  SAKS  FIFTH  AVENUE  SELECTED  STORES  •  BLOOMIIMGDALES 


Name:  Anne  Heche.  Age:  "Twenty-six.  I  don't  lie  about  my  age."  Occupation:  Actress.  Attachment:  "Like  c 
vacuum  cleaner?  What  does  that  mean?  I'm  sure  it  means  personal  attachment."  (Won't  elaborate.)    Hometown: 
"I'm  from  Aurora,  Ohio."    Current  projects:  If  These  Walls  Could  Talk,  an  HBO  drama;  Walking  and  Talking,  a  ro- 
mantic comedy  from  Miramax;  crime  drama  Donn/e  Brasco,  with  Johnny  Depp  and  Al  Pacino.   Big  break'  "O  F 
neers/  was  my  first  film.  Some  people  say  Tfie  Juror  was  the  one  that  opened  doors."  Influences:  "Caffeine      Ni 
name:  "Annie.  I  don't  have  a  Trixie-type  name.  It's  either  Annie  or  Anne-or  goddess."  -MICHAEL  MUST< 


VANITY  FAIR/JULY  1996 


Photograph  by  EIKA  AOSHIMA 


65 


'anities 


were 
becoming 

1990s 
hepcats 

H  rinks,  like  life, 
keep  getting  harder,  it  seems:  tastemakers 
are  increasingly  forgoing  the  tame  offerings  of  the 
microbrewery  and  the  vine  in  favor  of  high-octane  cocktails. 
Barmen  are  scouring  antiquated  mixology  guides  for  the 
components  of  such  retro  libations  as  gimlets,  Gibsons,  salty 
dogs,  and  bee's  knees  (1  jigger  of  gin,  1  teaspoon  of  honey,  juice  of 
14  lemon;  shake  well  with  ice  and  strain  into  glass).  The  allure  of 
old-fogy  drinks— whose  very  names  evoke  women  in  hostess  pajamas  and 
men  wearing  Hai  Karate  aftershave— goes  hand  in  hand  with  a  renewed 
interest  in  the  smoky  and  smooth  sounds  of  Shirley  Bassey,  Esquivel, 
Antonio  Carlos  Jobim,  Bobby  Darin,  Mel  Torme,  and  Louis  Prima. 

"Interest  in  serious  liquor  picked  up  about  a  year  ago,"  says 
John  McDonald,  the  owner  of  New  York's  MercBar  and  its  newly  minted 
Phoenix  outpost.  "People  are  getting  the  feel  for  more  sophisticated 
liquor  just  as  they  are  listening  to  more  sophisticated  music.  We're  moving 
a  lot  more  Manhattans  [2A  bourbon,  %  vermouth,  dash  of  bitters]  and 
even  negronis  [A  gin,  A  Campari,  A  sweet  vermouth,  lemon  twist]." 
Perhaps  the  avatars  of  hip  are  looking  for  an  antidote  to  greasy  kid  stuff 
like  mosh  pits,  flannel  shirts,  and  brew  pubs.  "As  you  get  a  little  older, 
you  turn  away  from  pounding  a  Budweiser.  And  when  I'm  wearing 
my  sharkskin  suit,  I  want  a  cocktail  that's  a  little  more  classic— a  little 
more  Breakfast  at  Tiffany's,  a  little  more  James  Bond,"  says  Senor  Amor, 
the  premier  D.J.  on  the  Los  Angeles  lounge  scene.  Bands  such  as 
Combustible  Edison,  Love  Jones,  the  Blue  Hawaiians,  and  Big  Bad 
Voodoo  Daddy  have  emerged  as  well;  some  have  contributed  music  to 
Miramax  Films'  Swingers,  a  movie  which  promises  to  become  the 
American  Graffiti  for  the  new  grooviness.  Directed  by  Doug  Liman  (the 
son  of  Iran-contra  Senate  counsel  Arthur  Liman),  Swingers  features 
two  twentysomething  cats  who  road-trip  to  Vegas  for  a  little  ring-a-ding-ding. 

Indeed,  sultriness  is  the  order  of  the  day:  "We  have  a  saying  about 
our  infusions  [concoctions  made  with  fruit-laced  vodka],"  says  L.A.'s 
Bar  Marmont  co-owner  Sean  MacPherson  with  an  insouciance  that  would 
make  Joey  Bishop  proud.  "The     cocktails  are  like  women's  breasts: 
one  is  not  enough  and  three  is  t       nany."  — john  brodie 


Face  in  the  Crowd 

There's  no  mistaking  the 
classical  gravity  of  a  David 
Seidner  photograph.  The 
mysterious  tension  be- 
tween light  and  line,  the 
synapse  inside  stillness— 
these  are  Seidner  themes, 
carried  through  subjects  ranging 
from  the  nude  to  the  fashion  shoot 
(a  form  Seidner  is  single-handedly 
redefining).  This  month,  "The  Face 
of  Contemporary  Art"  goes  up  at 
Paris's  new  Maison  Europeenne 
de  la  Photographic  A  presenta- 
tion of  portraits  from  among  the 
some  100  Seidner  photographs 
in  the  museum's  permanent  col- 
lection, the  exhibition  (and  book 
of  the  same  title)  honors  the  an- 
cient Roman  bust,  each  face  em- 
ploying a  blank,  archaic  stare. 
"I  was  trying  to  get  to  the  basics 
of  what  registers  in  our  subcon- 
scious as  a  portrait,"  Seidner  ex- 
plains. And  he  does,  in  gazes 
bold  with  being.       -LAURA  JACOBS 


Portraits  of  an  artist:  From  top  left, 
Br  ice  Mar  den,  Cindy  Sherman, 
Jeff  Koons;  Joan  Mitchell,  John  Cage, 
Louise  Bourgeois;  Roy  Lichtenstein, 
Ross  Bleckner,  Richard  Serra. 
All  photographed  by  David  Seidner. 


66 


VANITY  FAIR/JULY  1996 


INTRODUCING  THE  NEW 


CONDt       NAST 


Hous  e  ^Garden 


GET  THE 

PREMIERE 

ISSUE-FIRST! 

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the  best,  wisest,  wish-I'd-known-that-last-time  tips. 

From  now  on,  it's  right  the  first  time!  No 

wishing  you'd  known  more.  No  wishing  you'd 
done  more.  And  no  wishing  you'd  done  less!  You'll 
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attention  you  would  expect  in  a  fine  art  book! 

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don't  send  money  now.  Just  detach  and  mail 
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If  the  card  is  missing,  write  to  House  &  Garden, 
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Quantities  are  limited.  To  receive  the  Premiere 
issue,  please  send  your  reply  today! 


MfllllMiiM 


anities 


Trainspotting  producer 

Andmi  >  Macdonald  and 

director  Danny  Boyle. 


Matt  LeBlanc,  actor: 

The  Last  Sanctuary. 

by  Craig  Holder/  (Delacorte). 

"It's  an  extremely  intelligent 

thriller  that  deals  with 

more  than  just  black  and  white 

or  good  and  evil.  It  paints 

a  more  complex,  realistic — and 

I  think  fascinating— picture 

of  human  nature. " 


light-Table  Reading 


Karen  Black,  actress: 

As  I  Lay  Dying. 

by  William  Faulkner 

(Vintage).  "If  called  upon 

to  report  what  the  spontaneous 

seconds  of  life  are  really 

like  as  they  hiss  by— 

textured,  redolent  of 

half-  memories  —  most  people 

would  be  unable  to  do  so 

accurately.  Faulk  tier 's  people. 

Cunningly,  can." 


Betty  White, 

actress:  The  True  Life  Storj 
of  Isobel  Roundtree. 
by  Kathleen  Wallace  King 
(Washington  Square  Press). 
"It  was  a  first  novel  that 
was  given  to  me. 
and  I  found  the  writing  just 
enchanting. " 


David  Black, 

writer,  producer:  A  Village 
Romeo  and  Juliet 
by  Gottfried  Keller  (Scribner) 
"In  her  introduction  to  a 
1914  translation,  Edith  Wharton 
wrote,  'Certain  images  of 
Gottfried  Keller's  rank  with 
Shakespeare's.'" 


68 


Scotch  Take 


^H  ow  that  we've  seen  Liam  Neeson  cozy  up  to  a  dead 

^B  cow  in  Rob  Roy,  and  Mel  Gibson  wield  his  ax  in 

^H  Bravehearf,  what's  so  strange  about  seeing  a  bunch 
^H  of  Edinburgh  lads  shoot  heroin  in  Trainspotting?  Plen- 
^H  ty,  as  American  audiences  will  discover  this  month 
^H  when  this  latest  Scottish  high  arrives  Stateside.  Dark 
I  and  smart,  with  blasphemous  humor  to  spare, 
I  Trainspotting  makes  no  concessions  to  middle-class 
anxieties.  "Choose  life.  Choose  a  job. . . .  Choose  a  fucking  big 
television,"  as  the  film's  unlikely  hero,  Mark  Renton,  played  with 
brilliance  and  pasty  thinness  by  Ewan  McGregor,  rants  in  the 
opening  sequence.  Since  its  London  debut  in  February,  Trainspot- 
*ing  has  been  scoring  with  audiences  while  agitating  critics.  "It's 
now  as  big  as  Dumb  and  Dumber,  as  I'm  fond  of  saying,"  reports 
Scottish  producer  Andrew  Macdonald,  who  made  the  film,  with 
English  director  Danny  Boyle  and  Scottish  screenwriter  John 
Hodge,  for  a  scant  $2.3  million.  The  threesome,  who  came  to 
prominence  with  last  year's  stylish  sleeper  Shallow  Grave,  goes 
further  with  this  lucid  adaptation  of  an  arcane  book  about  a 
bunch  of  contempo  wasters.  There's  Sick  Boy  and  Spud,  Tommy 
and  Begbie,  but  it's  Renton  who  stands  out  and  saves  the  film 
from  being  a  terminal  downer.  In  one  very  funny  scene  he's  ob- 
served diving  into  a  filthy  toilet  bowl  after  a  misguided  opium 
suppository.  Despite  the  array  of  needles,  Trainspotting  is  strange- 
ly uplifting— "life-enhancing,"  as  Boyle  says.  Meanwhile,  Miramax 
is  hoping  for  another  Pulp  Fiction,  and  Macdonald,  Hodge,  and 
Boyle  say  they'll  reunite  this  fall  for  a  $  1 0  million  romance  called 
A  Life  Less  Ordinary.  -CATHY  HORYN 


VANITY  FAIR/JULY  1996 


anities 


What's  hn,  Bacharadi? 

Burt's  back  and  better  than  ever 


n  the  60s,  Burt  Bacharach  wrote  the  songs  that  made 
Dionne  Warwick  and  Tom  Jones  sing.  Now  current 
pop  icons,  from  Oasis  to  Michael  Stipe,  are  honor- 
ing the  original  piano  man  with  tributes 
to  his  classic  hits.  To  mark  this  new 
Bacharach  moment,  Burt  and  george 
wayne  do  a  duet. 

George  Wayne:  Burt,  before  we  go  any  further, 
I  must  know  what  you  think  of  Dionne  Warwick 
and  her  psychic-psychobabble  infomercials. 
Burt  Bacharach:  Between  you  and  me?  [Sighs 
long  pause.]  I  guess  it's  something  she  reasoned 
she  had  a  chance  of  making  money  at— I  hope 
G.W.  /  hear  she 's  making  millions. 
B.B.  Well,  we  don't  talk  about  it  much,  George. 
G.W.  So  you  mean  you  never  talk  about  these 
commercials  at  all? 

B.B.  No.  Hang  on.  I  have  to  get  this  call.  The 
ex-wife. 

G.W.  One  of  the  many.  [A  five-minute  wait.]  You're 
still  friendly  with  your  ex-wives?  Which  one  was  that, 
Carole  Bayer  Sager? 

B.B.  Yeah,  we  have  a  10-year-old.  You  know,  she  bought 
that  rocking  chair  from  that  [Jackie  Onassis]  auction. 
G.W.  Carole  did?  What's  the  story  on  that?  Where's  she 
gonna  put  it? 

B.B.  I  don't  know,  George.  Maybe  she'll  use  it 
in  the  office. 

G.W.  Were  you  and  Dionne  Warwick 
lovers  during  your  very  creative 
period  of  the  60s? 
B.B.  No,  no,  no.  Never. 
We  love  each  other,  but 
we  were  never  lovers. 
I  never  mix  the  two. 
I  only  did  it  one  time, 
and   that   was   with 
Carole. 

G.W.  Tell  me  a  great  Die 
trich  anecdote.  You  were  her 
musical  director. 

B.B.  I  think  the  most  amazing 
time  was  doing  the  concert  in  Israel 
with  her.  It  was  the  early  60s,  and  it 
was  just  after  the  German  tour.  It  was  the 
first  time  she  had  gone  back  to  Germany  af- 
ter the  war.  And  we  went  to  Israel  after  that. 
She  sang  in  German,  which  was  discouraged.  No 
one  was  allowed  to  speak  German  onstage,  no  Ger 
man  films.  And  Marlene  sang  nine  songs  in  German  on- 


stage in  Tel  Aviv.  And  it  was  one  of  the  most  emotional 
experiences  ever.  The  dam  broke.  Everybody  was  crying.  It 
was  an  emotional  roller  coaster. 

G.W.  What  was  it  like  being  married  to  Angie  Dickinson? 
B.B.  A  terrific  lady.  Angie  is  the  type  of  woman  that  would 
do  anything  for  the  man  she  loves.  When  I  did  that  first 
movie,  Wliat's  New,  Pussycat?,  she  would  get  up  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  night  to  change  the  film  on  my  Moviola  machine. 
In  general,  it's  often  a  Libran  quality,  George. 
G.W.  You  believe  in  astrology? 
B.B.  Oh  yeah,  for  sure.  Remember,  I  was  with  Die- 
trich. Anytime  we  flew  anywhere,  she  had  the  dates 
checked  out.  I  remember  what  con- 
vinced me  was  once  we  were  in 
Brazil  and  she  wanted  to  come 
back  later  than  I  did.  I  wanted 
to  come  back  earlier,  so  she 
called  the  astrologer  in  California, 
and  he  told  her  not  to  take  the  earlier 
flight.  Later  we  found  out  that  flight 
had  a  crash  landing  in  the  Caribbean. 
That  convinced  me. 

G.W.  Pop  music  is  having  a  Burt  Bacharach 
moment.  A  lot  of  current  stars  are  paying  you 
homage.  From  Oasis  to  Michael  Stipe. 
B.B.  I'm  very  flattered.  A  lot  of  English 
groups   especially.   Actually,   they 
knew  me  much  more  in  England 
when  I  started  out  than  here. 
G.W.  Are  you  a  Pearl  Jam  or 
Green  Day  fan? 

B.B.  Driving  around  in  my  Lexus 
I  listen  to  a  lot  of  interesting  mu- 
sic. I  listen  to  urban  music,  but  I 
have  a  hard  time  listening  to  all  that 
rap.  I'm  a  melody  person.  The  rap  I 
do  respond  to  has  melodic  hooks. 
G.W.  Which  is  ironic,  because  the 
Lexus  is  a  status  item  in  the 
world  of  rap. 

B.B.  The  reality  of  it  is  that  it  is 
a  great  car.  I've  had  this  car  now 
for  seven  years. 

G.W.  What  are  your  three  favorite 
Bacharach  tunes? 
B.B.  "Alfie"  would  be  one.  "That's 
What  Friends  Are  For,"  "Anyone  Who 
Had  a  Heart." 
G.W.  What  the  world  needs  now  is  another 
Burt  Bacharach  hit. 
B.B.  I  second  that. 


VANITY  FAIR/JULY  1996 


ntTMffiwm 


69 

irnnwimi 


I 


Boone  town:  Mary  Boone,  Roy  Lichtenstein, 
and  Malcolm  Morley. 


Striking  a  pose:  Parker  Posey  toasts  Ross  Bleckner. 


Above,  Leo  Castelli  waits  to  check  his  coat; 
below,  Bianca  Jagger  learns  something  new 
at  the  Bleckner  after-party  at  Pravda. 


U  Camera 


Above,  John  Waters,  Ross  Bleckner,  and  Gregg 
Kadel  at  Bleckner's  opening;  below,  Iman, 
David  Bowie,  and  Damien  Hirst  at  Hirst's  open- 
ing at  the  Gagosian  Gallery. 


POP    GOES    THE    EASEL 

The  Ross  Bleckner  opening  at  the  Mary 
Boone  Gallery  was  like  a  Studio  54  reunion. 
Among  the  revelers  were  Calvin  Klein. 
Bianca  Jagger.  and  Nicole  Miller,  not  to  men- 
tion Mary  Boone  herself.  If  Parker  Posey,  who 
plays  Mary  Boone  in  Julian  Schnabel's  up- 
coming Buscjiiiat,  had  decided  to  stand  at  the 
door  with  a  clipboard  and  a  velvet  rope,  the 
crowds  would  have  soon  started  to  form. 


"Don't  ever  change!"  James  Garner  and  Tony  Curtis  have  an  Old  Holly- 
wood moment,  while  Howard  Stringer  and  Robert  Morton  embrace  and 
remember  the  halcyon  days  at  CBS.  Below,  Kevin  Costner. 


WASHINGTON    NIGHTS 


I os  Angeles  and  New  York 
made  their  annual  pilgrimage 
to  Washington  for  the  White 
House  Correspondents'  Asso- 
ciation Dinner.  Kevin  Costner. 
Woody  Harrelson.  Richard 
Dreyfuss.  Tom  Selleck.  Oliver 
Stone,  and  Diane  Von  Fursten- 
burg  schmoozed  till  dawn  at 
the  Vanity  Fair  after-party  at 
the  Lothrop  mansion. 

-TOBY  YOUNG 


70 


SZ3500 


N  PHOTO 


YOU'RE  WRONG. 

I've  made  the  same  mistake  as  the  show  organizers  —  assuming  the  man  was  a 
fessional  photographer  merely  because  of  his  Olympus'  camera.  While  it's  true 
ny  professionals  use  an  Olympus  as  their  snapshot  camera,  this  doesn't  mean 
irybody  with  an  Olympus  is  a  pro.  This  confusion  affects  all  Olympus  owners. 
this  case,  an  innocent  man  was  ushered  to  the  very  front  row  of  a  fashion 
w  — a  disorienting  experience.  Remember,  pros  choose  Olympus  because  they're 
pie  to  use  and  take  amazing  snapshots,  but  anybody  can  buy  one. 


INFINITY  SUPERZOOM  3500 


35-1 20 mm  Zoom,  4  automatic  flash  modes  including 
red  eye  reduction,  weatherproof,  precise  autofocus, 
continuous  shooting  mode  for  4  frames  per 


3W  THE  BIG  SHOTS  TAK|  SNAPSHOTS: 


For  some  reason,  people  have  become  fond 
of  saying  that  things  aren't  black  and 
white,  but  they  are,  they  are.  Nuns  and 
penguins  and  zebras  apart,  with  their  love- 
ly intrinsic  contrasts,  many  things  are  ei- 
ther deeply  black  or  profoundly  white. 
Anthracite  and  ebony,  snowballs  and  co- 
caine. Some  felines  are  jet,  some  bears 
are  milky— and  vice  versa.  Invited  to  a 
black-tie  event  or  a  white-tie  one.  I 
know  where  I  stand  (or,  if  not,  at  least 
whether  I've  worn  the  wrong  tie).  The  ace  of  spades 
is  a  decisive  card.  The 
white  knight  clearly  an- 
nounces his  intentions.  At 
the  beginning  and  end  of 
our  universe,  and  at  its 
edges  and  outer  limits, 
black  holes  and  white 
dwarfs  are  the  unambiva- 
lent  symbols  of  the  ab- 
solute and  the  infinite. 
They  are  possible  futures 
and  possible  pasts,  and  they 
are  totally  stark.  They  are 
not— to  employ  another 
common,  lazy  phrase- 
shades  of  gray. 

With  black  and  white, 
you  know  where  you  are 
and  (like  Laurel  and  Har- 
dy, like  Othello  and  Desde- 
mona,  like  Don  Quixote 
and  Sancho  Panza)  you 
can't  have  one  without  the 
other.  The  game  of  chess, 
with  its  dance  of  death  and 
its  infinite  depth  and  vari- 
ety, would  be  the  same  game 
if  the  squares  and  pieces 
were  orange  and  blue.  Ex- 
cept that  it  wouldn't  be.  We  need  our  black  and  white. 

Between  the  idea 
And  the  reality 
Between  the  motion 
And  the  act 
Falls  the  Shadow. 

So  wrote  T  S.  Eliot  in  1925.  Watch  the  films  taken  from 
outer  space  as  the  sun  rises  (and  sets)  across  the  terres- 
trial globe.  Or  watch  the  transitions  between  scenes  in 
Citizen  Kane  as  the  sharp  edge  of  shadow  transforms  the 
entire  perspective.  Day  and  night.  Night  and  day.  We 
need  this  alternation  and,  though  the  whole  spectrum  of 
color  is  involved  in  it,  that  spectrum  is  defined  by  the  pres- 
ence of  black  and  white— neither  of  which  is  a  color  at  all. 


NIGHT 


CHRISTOPHER  HITCHENS 
ac-cen-tuates  the  positive- 

and  the  negative- 
of  a  black-and-white  world 


In  some  unexamined  but  authentic  sense,  the  tones  of 
black  and  white  are  the  tones  of  truth  and  reality.  Do 
not  the  grainy  old  documentaries  of  the  Western  Front 
and  the  Nuremberg  rallies  and  the  Depression  seem  more 
genuine  than  yesterday's  lurid  splashes  of  color  from  the 
TV  news?  Matthew  Brady's  photographs  of  the  Civil  War, 
which  seem  to  have  a  silvery  quality  about  them,  hold 
the  attention  and  the  eye  much  longer  than  more  garish 
recent  spreads  from  Rwanda  or  southern  Lebanon.  So  do 
Edward  S.  Curtis's  immaculately  posed  Native  American 
chieftains.  The  blood  in  Kurosawa's  version  of  Macbeth 
is  actually  black,  and  it  looks  much  more  bloody  than  any 

crimson  or  scarlet  gore.  Who 
watches  a  colorized  Casablan- 
ca without  wincing?  Sergei 
Eisenstein  in  his  classic  work 
Tlie  Film  Sense  argues  that  by 
avoiding  the  superficial  attrac- 
tions of  color  you  achieve  what 
both  you  and  the  audience  want, 
which  is  a  greater  attention  to 
form.  Eisenstein  was  right. 

In  India  and  in  Japan,  and 
in  some  other  countries  and 
cultures,  people  wear  white  at 
funerals  and  during  periods 
of  mourning.  But  if  it  weren't 
white,  don't  tell  me  it  would 
be  cerise  or  canary  yellow.  In 
our  pathetic  way  we  strive  for 
purity  and  seriousness,  and 
black  and  white  are  the  raw 
materials.  When  Goya  used  col- 
or, as  in  his  court  paintings 
of  the  Bourbons,  he  was  a  mas- 
ter of  the  palette  and  the  spec- 
trum and  the  gorgeous.  But 
when  he  desired  to  leave  a  real- 
ly vivid  impression  on  the  reti- 
na, he  reached  for  the  charcoal. 
When  Picasso  strove  for  the 
Goya  effect  and  executed  his  masterpiece  Guernica,  he 
ensured  that  it  was  completely  and  utterly  colorless. 

Henri  Cartier-Bresson  and  Richard  Avedon  are  alike 
in  this— color  is  for  commercial  work,  but  black-and- 
white  is  for  the  realist  study  and  the  attempt  at  hon- 
esty. When  Rudyard  Kipling  aimed  to  write  alternative 
narratives  of  the  same  society  and  scenery,  he  chose 
the  title  In  Black  and  White.  And  it's  no  use  being  lit- 
eral and  saying  that  Indians  are  actually  brown.  For 
that  matter,  ivory  is  really  yellow  and  so  are  most 
"white"  piano  keys.  We  know  what  we  are  talking 
about.  We  don't  look  at  the  newspaper  or  a  contract 
or  a  confession  or  a  signature  of  a  famous  person  or 
a  treaty  and  say,  "Here  it  all  is  in  purple  on  a  yellow- 
ing parchment."  We  satisfy  ourselves  about  the  authen- 
ticity and  we  say,  "Here  it  all  is— in  black  and  white." 


72 


JULY     1996 


ed  Heat 

Photographs  by  ANNIE  LEIBOVITZ  •  Styled  by  ANDRE  LEON  TALLEY 


■— ««"— "™ 


TOBBUBraMI 


ith  three  homes 
in  one  city  Nicolas  Cage  is  kinetically 
domestic,  settled  in  yet  free  to  impro- 
vise. There's  a  rhythm  to  his  life,  but 
it's  jazzy— drawn  out  and  sultry,  then 
suddenly  bebop,  just  smoking.  You're 
never  sure  of  the  next  riff.  Sometimes 
he  lives  in  a  white  ersatz  castle  high 
in  the  Hollywood  Hills,  and  to  an 
easterner,  unaccustomed  to  the  vertig- 
inous heights  of  glamour,  the  steps 
leading  up  to  Chez  Cage  seem  to  go 
on  forever,  much  like  the  actor's  legs. 
Previously,  in  an  apartment  he  keeps 
in  downtown  Los  Angeles,  Cage  man- 
aged to  display  his  impeccable  man- 
ners, while  casually  insinuating  his 
preferences.  "Would  you  like  a  Diet 
Coke?"  he  asked,  his  voice  dropping 
to  a  warm  g-r-r-r.  "Or  a  real  root 
beer?"  He  caresses  dialogue  slowly,  im- 
parting nuance,  velvet  innuendo.  But 
he's  not  just  talk.  He  keeps  a  place  in 
Malibu.  In  case  he  wants  to  surf. 

Although  he  is  not,  as  director  Mike 
Figgis  observes,  "conventional  Holly- 
wood chocolate-box  good-looking,"  Nick 
Cage  is  one  dreamboat  worth  losing  a 
little  sleep  over.  He  is  somewhere  be- 
tween over-the-edge  and  out-of-sight, 
between  the  man  you  think  you  want 
and  the  one  you  shouldn't  have.  Combed, 
he  could  pass  for  a  Roman  tenor;  un- 
combed, bar  the  door.  He  is  the  one 
with  the  heavy  lids,  the  bowstring  mouth, 
the  guy  who  told  Playboy,  "I  dig  af- 
fection, baby,  but  not  while  I'm  driv- 
ing." Now,  after  14  years  of  laying 
rubber  and  throwing  glances,  Nick  Cage 
has  becom  our  smoothest  practition- 
er of  the         -eyed  move. 

Tl  n  apartment  is  one  of 

those  d-and-crushed-leather 

place-  re  apt  to  find  back 

East.  It  the  boardroom  for 

the  L.A.  a  '.  which  right  away, 

of  course  dler  country  .  .  . 

76 


dames  and  the  smell  of  orange  blos- 
soms. "I  was  driving  late  one  night  in 
my  car,"  Cage  tells  me.  "It  was  rain- 
ing and  I  felt  like  going  downtown. 
At  night,  L.A.  becomes  .  .  .  like 
Gotham.  Totally  empty.  So  I  checked 
into  a  hotel  and  I  thought.  Tomorrow 
I'm  going  to  look  for  an  apartment." 
He  makes  this  sound  as  if  it  were  the 
most  uncomplicated  thing  in  the  world, 
like  ordering  a  burger  or  something 
at  Norm's.  And,  in  a  way,  it's  this  ca- 
sualness,  this  mind-set  of  "Just  Do 
It,"  that  defines  both  the  actor  and 
his  audacious  career.  He's  like  a  throw- 
back to  a  40s  hero:  "Let's  not  think 
too  hard  about  the  consequences,"  a 
Cage  character  might  have  said  to  Stan- 
wyck or  Bacall.  And  she  wouldn't, 
not  for  a  hot  second. 

His  adventurousness  has  taken  him 
to  the  heights  and  through  shady,  less 
traveled  venues.  In  Leaving  Las  Vegas, 
Cage  played  a  Hollywood  screenwriter 
who  drinks  himself  to  death  in  the 
arms  of  a  prostitute.  Not  exactly  ca- 
reer-enhancing material,  yet  in  March 
it  won  him  the  Academy  Award  for 
best  actor  and  helped  boost  his  asking 
price  from  $4  million  a  picture  to  $7 
million.  In  his  latest  film,  The  Rock, 
which  opens  this  month,  Cage  shifts 
the  rhythm  again.  He  plays  Stanley 
Goodspeed.  a  mild-mannered,  vinyl- 
versus-CD  kind  of  F.B.I,  agent  who  joins 
forces  with  a  medieval-looking  convict 
(Sean  Connery)  to  save  the  city  of  San 
Francisco  from  chemical  attack.  Cage, 
not  unexpectedly,  doesn't  rely  on  the 
usual  action -hero  poses.  He  creates  a 
consummately  thoughtful  character  who, 
like  himself,  moves  with  deliberate 
speed— after  he  has  assessed  the  mood 
of  the  rain  splashing  in  the  umber  lights. 

"With  Nick,  you  never  know  what's 
going  to  happen,"  says  his  old  friend 
songwriter  Phil  Roy.  "I've  been  to  the 
airport  to  drop  him  off— and  gotten 
on  the  plane."  A  year  ago  last  April, 
Cage  surprised  everyone,  including  his 
previous  girlfriend,  by  marrying  ac- 
tress Patricia  Arquette  (Flirting  with  Dis- 
aster, True  Romance)  in  a  semi-secret 
ceremony  in  Carmel. 

"It  was  something  I  had  been  med- 
itating on  for  eight  years,"  explains  Cage, 
who  first  met  Arquette  in  1987,  when 
she  was  19,  at  Canter's  delicatessen  in 
L.A.  (According  to  the  well-known 
story,  our  hero,  no  stranger  to  the  ex- 
travagant gesture,  swore  at  that  mo- 


ment, before  her  and  the  salami,  that 
she  would  one  day  be  his  wife.)  "There 
was  something  about  her  that  hadn'^ 
yet  happened— that  had  some  incredi- 
ble  meaning  in  my  life,"  says  the  32 
year-old  Cage.  The  two  dated  briefly] 
then  stayed  in  occasional  telephone 
contact  until  they  came  together  again 
(at  Canter's)  a  few  months  before  the 
wedding.  Whatever  the  confluence  oj 
fate  and  timing,  Cage  clearly  seems  td 
have  found  in  the  blonde  and  beguil- 
ing Arquette  his  long-sought-after  Di- 
ana,  a  goddess  who  can  cast  a  spell 
and,  as  he  once  put  it,  "kick  my  ass.'] 

ourtly"  is  not  a  word  any 
one  would  immediately  think 
of  to  describe  Nicolas  Cage. 
This  is  the  guy,  after  all,  whoj 
said  that  if  he  could  be 
woman  for  a  day  the  first 
thing  he  would  do  is  mas 
turbate;  who  once  hurled  a 
ketchup  bottle  against  the  wall  of  a 
restaurant  to  impress  a  girl;  and  who, 
in  a  serious  moment  of  comic  impair^ 
ment,  got  on  the  PA.  system  of  an  air-j 
plane  and  announced  to  the  cockpit, 
"This  is  the  captain  speaking  .  .  .  I'm 
losing  control  of  the  airplane  .  .  .  Please 
bear  with  me  ...  " 

But  he's  a  courtly  hellion,  with  an) 
old-world  graciousness  about  himl 
"None  of  us  is  one  thing,  or  the  one] 
thing  that  the  press  picks  up  on,"  says} 
Cher,  who  was  so  taken  by  Cage's! 
strangely  compelling  performance  in 
1986's  Peggy  Sue  Got  Married  (she  com-! 
pared  it  to  watching  a  two-hour  can 
crash)  that  she  proposed  him  for  tha 
part  of  Ronny  in  Moonstruck— thenl 
walked  out  of  the  production  for  a* 
day  until  the  producers  gave  in. 

"A  couple  of  times  I  made  lunch  fori 
Nicky  at  my  apartment,"  Cher  adds.- 
"One  time  he  asked  me  if  I  was  a  witch- 
he  was  into  that  stuff.  So  I  said,  'II 
am.'  He  said,  'I  thought  so.'"  But  shec 
doesn't  overemphasize  the  unconven-i- 
tional— the  uncaged  Nick.  "If  anyone  is 
a  rounded  person,  Nicky  is.  To  me,  Nicky 
is  a  Renaissance  man."  He  is,  after  all, 
the  sort  of  person  who  lives  in  beauti 
ful  homes  surrounded  by  works  of  art 
and  freshly  cut  flowers,  who  reads  vo 
raciously  and  can  discuss  the  contours 
of  a  Raymond  Loewy  model  train 
"That's  the  thing  I  noticed  about  Nick 
years  ago,"  says  his  friend  Jim  Carrey, 
who  met  Cage  10  years  back  on  the  sei 


tended  as  praise,  was  misinterpreted 
by  the  paper  to  mean  professional 
demise,  and  the  two  stopped  talking. 
I  ask  Cage  how  things  stand  with  Au- 
gust now. 

"Things  are  O.K.  between  us,"  he 
says  guardedly,  "but  you  know  how  it 
is.  Sometimes  you're  on  the  right 
wave  and  sometimes  you're  not." 

"And  sometimes,"  I  venture,  "you're 
a  prickly  pear." 


*V 


THE  ENGINE  THAT  COULD 

Cage,  photographed  at  the 

Santa  Te  Railroad  in  San  Bernardino, 

California,  is  a  connoisseur 

of  objects.  He  mixes  Murano  glass  and 

Lionel  railway  models  designed 

y  Raymond  Eocwy  in  his  white  castle 

in  the'  Hollywood  Hills. 


For  his  latest  role,  Cage  has 
reincarnated  himself.  As  an 
action  hero.  "I  always  felt 
that  Nick  would  be  the  right 
guy  for  Tlie  Rock, "  says  pro- 
ducer Jerry  Bruckheimer. 
"He  was  the  first  actor  we 
went  after.  And  this  was 
before  anyone  knew  what 
would  happen  with  Leaving  Las  Vegas." 
In  fact,  Cage  has  signed  up  to  do  two 
more  action  adventures:  Con  Air,  which 
Bruckheimer  is  also  producing  for  Dis- 
ney, and  John  Woo's  futuristic  thriller 
Face  Off,  which  will  pair  Cage  and  John 
Travolta  as  a  terrorist  and  a  cop  who 
literally  trade  faces. 

"I  mean,  I  like  all  three  of  these 
movies  that  I'm  doing,"  Cage  explains. 
"They  just  happen  to  fall  into  an  ac- 
tion genre.  I  like  Con  Air.  I  think  it's 
a  great  script.  And  I  think  The  Rock 
is  going  to  be  a  good  movie.  And  Face 
Off  is  fascinating." 

The  conversation  is  taking  place  at 
Chez  Cage,  which  doesn't  resemble  a 
castle  so  much  as  a  perfect  marzipan 
miniature.  It  is  stunningly  white,  like 
a  Turkish  towel  against  a  tan,  and  it 
overlooks  the  whole  of  the  Los  Ange- 
les basin.  When  Cage  appeared  at  the 
door,  he  had  on  cowboy  boots,  black 
leather  pants,  and  a  white  T-shirt.  His 
hair  was  lightly  combed. 

When  our  talk  turns  to  the  decor, 
he  is  voluble.  "I  wanted  to  make  it 
look  Gothic  Hot  Rod,"  he  says.  "So 
I  combined  art  that  I  like,  which  is 
more  underground  artists,  like  Robert 
Williams  and  Anthony  Ausgang,  with 
a  kind  of  Gothic  feeling,  which  I've 
always  admired  since  I  saw  Jean 
Cocteau's  Beauty  and  the  Beast.  That 
was  my  dream  as  a  child— to  live  in 
the  Beast's  castle." 

I  look  around  the  room  at  the  candy- 
apple-red  grand  piano  ...  the  illuminated 
alcoves  of  mounted  butterflies  .  .  . 
the  red-russet  (Continued  on  page  144) 


• 


XI 


tseasamnuauKxms 


Doomsday 

Man 

He  s  the  most  powerful  playe 
in  Republican  grassroots  politics.  He 

Ralph  Reed's  boss.  And  he  believe 
that  the  world  will  end  in  four  years] 
Is  this  the  man  America  wants  dictating  terms  in  thii 
years  presidential  election?  WILLIAM  PR0CHNA1 

and  LAURA  PARKER  investigate) 
the  fire-and-brimstone,  cash-and-carr^ 

world  of  Pat  Robertson 


82 


Sunday  drive  down  Highway  3  offers  escape  from  the  grime  of  the  industri 
al  town  of  Manchester,  New  Hampshire,  the  countryside  turning  softly  to  Noif 
man  Rockwell  family  values.  Clapboard  farmhouses  dot  rolling  snow-covereft 
fields.  Traditionalist  church  spires  jut  toward  heaven.  Five  miles  out,  just  paa 
the  lumberyard,  the  eight-o'clock  service  at  the  Faith  Christian  Center  begins 
The  state's  largest  charismatic  church,  Faith  Christian  is  born -again  modern 
its  altar  arrayed  with  electric  guitars  and  bongos,  its  hymns  Christian  contem 
porary  from  the  Integrity  Hosanna  line.  This  morning,  a  mission  to  Liberia  i' 
back  from  a  successful  evangelizing  endeavor:  many  converts  were  made,  an< 
with  a  laying  on  of  hands  a  blind  man  was  caused  to  see,  a  crippled  penitem 
v.  ^!ked,  and  Satan  was  driven  from  a  native  drummer  who  had  been  barkinj 
like  a  dog.  Next,  assistant  pastor  John  Fortin  turns  to  more  secular  matters 

Illustration  by  PHILIP  BURKE 


^HP^'  ^^9 


II 


/ 


\ 


\ 


HOLIER 
THAN  THOU 

"If  the  pro-family 

Roman  Catholics  and  the 

conservative  evangelicals 

unite  together," 

Pat  Robertson  has  said, 

"there  is  no  candidate 

that  we  cannot  elect.*' 

This  may  be  tested  by  the 

presidential  quest  of 

Senator  Bob  Dole,  pictured 

opposite  with 

Robertson  and  true  ■ 

believer  I  .audi  haircloth.  I 

Republican  senator! 

from  North  Carolina. 


"We  have  an  election  coming  up.  It  doesn't  matter  what 
we  think  with  our  natural  mind.  We  lift  this  election  up  to 
You,  Father.  Let  the  man  of  Your  choosing  go  on  to  win." 
But  the  faithful  must  do  God's  work  at  home  as  well 
as  in  Africa,  and  so  on  this  last  Sunday  before  the  New 
Hampshire  primary,  red-white-and-blue  voting  guides 
from  televangelist-entrepreneur  Pat  Robertson's  Christian 
Coalition  have  been  tucked  inside  each  worshiper's  pro- 
gram. It  is  a  sign  of  the  times. 


Not  since  the  days  of  William  Jennings  Bryan,  a  cen- 
tury ago.  has  religion  moved  into  such  a  central  lo- 
cation in  an  American  election.  And  bedrock  religion 
it  is— faith  healing,  miracles,  speaking  in  tongues,  sal- 
vation for  the  saved,  damnation  for  the  rest,  and  a 
stern  social  agenda  in  our  transitory  domain  here  on 
earth.  As  the  folks  from  Faith  Christian  headed 
homeward  that  Sunday,  Pat  Buchanan,  the  hero  of 
the  Christian  rightists,  hit  the  airwaves.  "You  may  believe 
you're  descended  from  monkeys,"  he  thundered  at  ABC's 
Sam  Donaldson.  "I  think  you're  a  creature  of  God." 

Actually,  Buchanan  was  late  to  the  game.  Phil  Gramm 
had  already  invoked  the  Second  Coming  to  raise  money, 
Lamar  Alexander  had  already  agreed  to  consider  Robertson 
as  a  running  mate,  and  Bob  Dole  and  his  wife,  Elizabeth, 
had  abandoned  their  traditional  Methodist  congregation  to 

attend  what  a  friend 
described  as  "several 
evangelical  churches 
that  more  accurately 
reflect  their  Christian 


APOCALYPSE  NOW 

Clockwise  from  top:  with  Robertson  at 

his  side,  Mobutu  Sese  Seko.  president  of  Zaire, 

addresses  the  press  in  1995.  Ralph  Reed, 

the  Christian  Coalition's  unholy  warrior, 

shows  his  teeth.  Robertson  with  pals 

Ben  Kinchlow  and  Terry  Meeuwsen  on  the 

700  Club  set.  The  club  is  the  cash  cow 

for  CBN  and  is  broadcast  from  Robertson's 

compound  in  Virginia  Beach,  Virginia. 


belief."  By  the  time  Dole  wrapped  up  the  nomination  in 
April,  the  Christian  Coalition  had  claimed  credit  for  deliv- 
ering the  crucial  votes,  enhancing  the  notion  that  Robert- 
son's troopers  had  become  the  most  powerful  political  machine 
since  organized  labor's  glory  days. 

Part  of  that  claim  was  illusory— and  keeping  Robertson 
hidden  was  crucial  to  sustaining  the  illusion.  As  the  1996 
election  year  progressed,  the  Christian  Coalition  would 
prove  to  be  less  powerful  than  its  carefully  contrived  rep- 
utation. Even  its  much-repeated  claim  of  having  1.7  mil- 
lion members  appeared  badly  inflated.  And  Robertson's 
moneymaking  pursuits  were  proving  as  interesting  as  his 
political  maneuverings.  But  the  broadcaster  who  parlayed 
800 -number  religion  and  boiler-room  business  tactics  into 
a  multimillion-dollar  empire  has  succeeded  in  thrusting 
himself  back  into  the  thick  of  American  politics. 

The  comeback  was  slick.  Eight  years  ago  Robertson, 
who  sees  himself  as  a  prophet  anointed  by  God,  was  all 
but  laughed  out  of  a  presidential  bid  made  on  orders  from 
above.  Back  now  as  a  power  broker,  Robertson  is  a  little 
older,  many,  many  millions  of  dollars  richer,  and  totally 
untempered  by  time.  Oddball  views  pop  out  of  him  like 
gum  from  a  gumball  machine.  Satan  moves  the  Ouija 
board.  Feminists  are  witches. 

None  of  his  views  is  more  provocative,  however,  than 
his  increasingly  frequent  insistence  on  the  approaching 
end  of  the  world.  Robertson,  who  is  66,  says  it  will  hap- 
pen in  his  lifetime.  He  likes  the  sound  of  the  year  2000, 
with  its  nice  millennial  ring. 

In  either  words,  the  new  political  kingpin's  candidate 
would  not  serve  out  a  full  term. 

In  the  Virginia  Tidewater  country, 
where  Marion  G.  "Pat"  Robertson 
planted  his  roots  35  years  ago,  the  weath- 
er can  quickly  turn  biblical.  Thunder- 
heads  form  at  sea  before  rumbling: 
ashore  to  dampen  the  daily  bacchanal  I 
at  Virginia  Beach,  snapping  a  few 
bolts  at  the  resort  town's  devilish  New 
Age  delis  and  T-shirt  shops  before 
roiling  up  Witch  Duck  Creek  and 
moving  inland  toward  God's  compound. 
The  place  looks  as  if  it  can  take  it. 
Its  buildings  have  been  called  neo-- 
Georgian  but  appear  neo-fortress,  with 
red  brick  walls  and  small,  restrictive  windows. 
Housed  within  are  a  television  network  con- 
nected to  the  most  powerful  satellite  dishes 
in  Christendom;  a  university  founded  to  pre- 
pare its  students  for  business,  law,  journal- 
ism, and  the  Second  Coming;  and  a  luxury 
hotel  that  was  as  dry  as  Carry  Nation's  cup- 
board until  Robertson  yielded  recently  to 
the  intemperate  realities  of  the  bottom  line. 
The  centerpiece  is  the  headquarters  and 
studios  of  the  Christian  Broadcasting  Net- 
work, which  produces  Robertson's  Vie  700 


\a- 


x 


84 


"I  made  no  threat  against  the  life 


Zlub  religious  talk  show  and  spreads  his  word  around  the 
vorld.  CBN  has  become  the  golden  goose  that  has  fund- 
id  all  the  rest  and  more.  By  the  end  of  the  century  it  will 
lave  raised,  from  those  800 -number  donations  alone,  at 
east  $2  billion. 

The  frontispiece  of  the  complex  is  the  Founder's  Inn, 
i  249-room  hotel  with  a  Monet  as  well  as  oil  portraits 
)f  three  distinguished  Virginians— Washington.  Jefferson, 
ind  Robertson.  Behind  the  inn  is  one  of  Robertson's  homes, 
i  brick  mansion  built  with  his  book  royalties.  Nearby,  his 
prized  Arabian  horses  graze.  Beneath  the  manicured 
awns,  tunnels  enable  him  to  move  from  home  to  office 
p  secrecy  and  safety.  Robertson  has  a  mania  for  securi- 
ty. The  house  is  surrounded  by  a  brick  wall,  which  is  sur- 
rounded by  a  wooden  fence,  which  is  surrounded  by  an 
electric  fence,  which  is  surrounded  by  sensors.  Secret 
cameras,  other  security  devices,  and  a  private  police 
force  of  42  patrol  the  house  and  the  700 -acre  compound. 

But  Robertson's  pride  and  joy  is  Regent  University, 
which  he  is  confident  will  produce  the  journalists,  lawyers, 
and  businessmen  who  will  serve  God  and  keep  the  coffers 
brimming.  Outside  the  library,  students  mill  about  a  strik- 
ing metal  sculpture  of  the  Four  Horsemen  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse. Three  of  the  horsemen  have  already  ridden  out  of 
a  background  wall.  All  but  the  hindquarters  of  the  fourth 
horse,  a  pale  steed  representing  Death,  has  emerged. 

Regent  University  is  one  of  Robertson's  paradoxes. 
He  is  an  empire  builder  who  builds  even  more  furiously 
as  the  end  nears. 

obertson  operates  under  the  blessing  of  "the  pros- 
perity gospel,"  and  his  moneymaking  ventures  are 
a  vision  to  behold.  "He's  a  businessman,"  says  Ed 
Rollins,  the  political  operative  who  has  previously 
advised  him.  "The  product  that  he  sells  is  religion." 
By  Robertson's  own  Lincolnesque  account,  he  ar- 
rived in  the  Virginia  Tidewater  country  in  1959 
with  $70  and  a  dream.  Robertson  likes  myths.  In 
fact,  he  was  the  child  of  Virginia  gentry;  his  father,  A.  Willis 
Robertson,  was  a  U.S.  senator  who  did  not  think  much  of 
his  son's  discovery  of  Bible -thumping.  The  senator's  opinion 
would  fall  further  five  years  later  when,  locked  in  a  tight  re- 
election race,  he  was  informed  by  his  son  that  God  had  re- 
fused to  let  him  help  out.  The  senator  lost  by  600  votes. 

Pat  had  returned  to  Virginia  after  graduating  from  Yale 
Law  School  but  failing  the  bar.  He  would  later  speak  with 
southern  pride,  often  on  The  700  Club,  of  his  manly  tests 
of  combat  in  Korea.  But  Robertson's  father  had  pulled 
strings  to  keep  his  son  away  from  shots  fired  in  anger. 
(His  buddies  called  young  Robertson  "the  liquor  officer," 
since  one  of  his  duties  was  to  ferry  booze  in  from  To- 
kyo.) Robertson's  father  also  bailed  his  son  out  of  some 
early  business  failures:  young  Pat  had  a  wild,  get-rich- 
quick  gambler's  streak  that  he  would  never  quite  subdue. 
There  were  other  concerns.  Pat  had  married  beneath 
himself,  the  senator  thought,  and  it  didn't  help  that 
the  young  woman  was  seven  months  pregnant  at  the  time. 


The  move  to  Virginia  Beach  changed  everything.  If  Robert- 
son had  been  wandering  in  the  desert,  now  he  had  stumbled 
into  the  Lost  Dutchman's  mine.  He  bought  a  small,  unsuc- 
cessful television  station  which  by  the  early  1980s  had  be- 
come CBN,  where  his  talk  show  was  pulling  in  tax-free  donations 
at  the  rate  of  $2  million  a  week.  The  volume  in  small  checks 
and  cash  was  so  great,  recalls  Gerard  Straub,  a  former  CBN 
producer,  that  the  bagged  money  was  dumped  on  conveyor 
belts  for  separating  and  counting.  By  1996,  Robertson  had 
become  one  of  the  richest  men  in  a  state  known  for  quiet 
but  expansive  wealth. 

Robertson  runs  his  personal  business  in  as  much  secrecy 
as  the  law  allows  and  as  much  obfuscation  as  he  can  create. 
But  no  one  doubts  the  fortune.  In  1990,  in  the  most  public 
of  his  moneymaking  deals,  Robertson  spun  the  Family  Chan- 
nel out  of  the  charitable,  tax-exempt  world  of  CBN  and  into 
the  profit-making  world  of  Wall  Street.  Overnight,  he  and  his 
son  Tim  turned  a  $183,000  investment  into  $90  million.  They 
also  got  control  of  the  new  parent  company,  International 
Family  Entertainment  (I.F.E.),  and  became  its  top  executives 
at  combined  salaries  and  bonuses  now  totaling  more  than  $1 
million  a  year. 

Robertson's  aides  say  he  gives  75  percent  of  his  I.F.E.  salary 
to  CBN  and  has  drawn  no  salary  from  the  religious  network  for 
five  years.  There  are  few  public  records  or  comments  from  his 
aides  about  salaries  from  other  businesses  he  has  spun  out  of 
CBN,  but  Robertson's  books  must  be  an  accountant's  dream. 
According  to  one  pending  lawsuit  against  him,  Robertson  charged 
one  of  his  own  companies  for  the  speeches  he  made  for  it. 

Some  of  the  enterprises  that  have  operated  on  the  edge  of 
CBN  have  left  investors  and  buyers  alike  feeling  as  if  the  tin 
man  had  just  come  through  the  neighborhood.  Robertson  has 
sold  Sea  of  Galilee  mud  masks  to  aging  matrons  and  vita- 
mins through  a  franchise  setup  that  critics  say  had  all  the 
markings  of  a  pyramid  scheme.  The  business  dealings  are  re- 
markably revealing  of  Robertson's  private  character.  His 
public  persona  is  documented  more  easily.  Robertson's  1988 
presidential  campaign  collapsed  under  a  deluge  of  what  his 
former  campaign  director,  Marc  Nuttle,  called  Pat's  "funny 
facts."  A  taped  1982  faith-healing  session  at  a  businessmen's 
gospel  fellowship  quickly  made  the  rounds: 

"Satan,  be  gone!"  Robertson  exhorted.  "A  hernia  has 
been  healed.  If  you're  wearing  a  truss,  you  can  take  it  off! 
Several  people  are  being  healed  of  hemorrhoids  and  vari- 
cose veins.  .  .  .  People  with  flatfeet,  God  is  doing  just  great 
things  to  you  ..." 

Other  problems  come  from  his  quasi-political  pronounce- 
ments, which  one  observer  calls  "geo-biblical  gibberish." 

"[Saddam  Hussein]  is  in  Babylon,"  Robertson  announced 
during  the  1991  Gulf  War.  "Babylon  is  the  center  of  false  re- 
ligion, and  here  the  nations  of  the  earth  have  gathered  to- 
gether in  this  armada  to  launch  what  they  call  the  new  world 
order.  Now,  Saddam  Hussein  is  the  opening  act.  This  isn't 
the  major  struggle.  The  major  struggle  is  going  to  be  against 
Israel.  The  forces  are  assembled.  We  have  set  something  in 
motion  that's  going  to  be  used  against  Israel.  Trust  me!" 

During  the  1988  campaign,  these  videotaped  flashes  from 


ifety  of  Mark  or  Andrea  Peterson"  Robertson  said. 


""— 


'The  creek  is  deep  and  I  swim  better  than  you,"  sap 


The  700  Club  fell  like  confetti  at  a  funeral.  Paul  Weyrich, 
a  prominent  right-wing  activist,  wrote  off  Robertson's 
presidential  campaign  as  so  humiliating  it  embarrassed 
even  Evangelicals  and  charismatics. 

The  Christian  right  is  a  diverse  place.  Confusing  an 
Evangelical  with  a  Fundamentalist  not  only  infuri- 
ates both  groups  but  is  as  wrongheaded  as  mistak- 
ing a  Catholic  for  a  Presbyterian.  Robertson  is 
hard  to  place  in  the  lineup,  a  neo-Pentecostal  Evan- 
gelical of  loose  theological  moorings.  In  the  world 
beyond  his  own  loyal  audience,  he  never  has  been 
wildly  popular.  Billy  Graham,  in  his  heyday,  often 
showed  up  in  polls  as  one  of  the  most  admired  men  in 
America.  Robertson  has  never  made  the  list,  and  one  re- 
cent Democratic  poll  showed  his  "very  positive"  rating  at  7 
percent.  Nor  are  his  more  extreme  theological  views  wide- 
ly shared  by  Christian  rightists.  Fewer  than  half,  for  exam- 
ple, believe  that  the  battle  of  Armageddon  is  looming. 

After  1988,  a  Robertson  comeback  seemed  so  unlikely  that 
the  Christian  Coalition,  founded  less  than  12  months  later, 
made  its  debut  with  what  its  operatives  called  a  "stealth  cam- 
paign." The  chief  hireling,  a  tough  young  born-again  polit- 
ical organizer  named  Ralph  Reed,  put  it  this  way:  "I  want  to 
be  invisible.  I  do  guerrilla  warfare.  I  paint  my  face  and  travel 
at  night.  You  don't  know  it's  over  until  you're  in  a  body  bag." 
Soon  the  bags  were  full  of  Democrats— and  Reed  be- 
came a  phenom,  the  new  story,  a  Washington  favorite 
drawn  into  the  town's  homogenizing  orbit.  To  his  fellow 
movers  and  shakers,  Reed  seemed  a  nice  enough  fellow  who 
talked  moderation  in  a  suit  a  couple  of  sizes  too  large. 
The  press  adored  him.  Satan  didn't  move  his  Ouija  board. 
Washington  began  to  forget  who  was  calling  the  shots. 
Reed  offered  few  reminders.  Floating  a  smoke  screen  over 
Robertson  was  always  part  of  his  job.  "Robertson  knows 
he  agitates  people  when  he  is  visible,"  Ann  Stone,  head  of 
Republicans  for  Choice,  has  said.  "It's  sort  of  like  a  vam- 
pire who  can't  stand  the  light." 

Neither  Robertson  nor  Reed  would  agree  to  be  inter- 
viewed for  this  article.  Robertson,  who  lives  in  a  closed- 
off  world,  soured  on  the  secular  press  long  ago.  "Thank 
the  Lord  most  of  the  Christians  read  neither  The  New 
York  Times  or  The  Washington  Post,"  he  once  said. 

Reed  doesn't  mind  getting  his  name  in  either  paper.  He 
thrives  on  Washington's  game  of  spin  and  bluff— and  the 
media,  he  knows  well,  provide  the  game  board.  So  he  talks 
polls  and  percentages— until  the  subject  turns  to  his  boss. 
Then  he  runs  like  a  rabbit  to  his  hole.  When  Michael  Lind 
wrote  a  scathing  analysis  of  Robertson's  conspiratorial 
tome,  The  New  World  Order,  in  The  New  York  Review  of 
Books  in  1995,  the  Tidewater  complex  went  into  orbit. 
Reed  ran  for  cover.  He  refused  to  appear  on  Crossfire 
with  Michael  Kinsley  -unless  the  commentator  promised 
not  to  bring  up  the  book.  Kinsley  wouldn't  promise.  Reed 
stayed  away  until  the  controversy  died  down.  When  Van- 
ity Fair  sought  an  interview  with  Reed,  his  aide,  Mike 

86 


k.' 


pat 
ma 
Re 
ibio 

it 
tot 


Russell,  made  a  telling  inquiry:  "Ralph  wants  to  knowF: 
what  percentage  of  this  story  will  be  about  him."  In  the 
end  Russell  said  Reed  would  submit  to  an  interview  ill* 
Vanity  Fair  agreed  not  to  talk  to  Reed's  opponents.  Rus-»pli 
sell  explained  that  he  had  cut  the  same  deal  with  Ted  Kop  F 
pel  on  Nightline.  When  asked  to  confirm  this,  the  producers  *:: 
at  Nightline  were  not  happy.  "Conflict  is  the  essence  of  ^ 
our  show,"  said  Eileen  Murphy  of  ABC  News.  The  deal, 
she  insists,  simply  did  not  happen. 

It  all  amuses  Lind,  an  irreverent  former  neoconservativec  ^ 
who  thinks  Reed  is  getting  a  free  ride  from  the  press.  "Asip 
the  Bible  says,  'Ye  shall  be  free  where  no  man  pursueth,'" 
he  laughed.  Lind  wants  to  debate  Reed.  "I'd  ask  him,  'Do 
you  believe  that  all  the  animals  walked  out  of  Noah's  Ark? 
Yes  or  no?  Do  you  think  this  should  be  taught  as  science, 
in  junior-high-school  geology  classes?  Yes  or  no?'" 

But  hiding  Robertson  and  his  views  is  an  impossible  chore 
The  boss  seems  unable  to  rein  in  his  rhetoric.  "The  femi-  B 
nist  agenda  is  not  about  equal  rights  for  women,"  hec*1 
wrote  in  a  fund-raising  letter  in   1992,  three  years  afteri^ 
forming  his  coalition.  "It  is  about  a  socialist,  anti-family 
political  movement  that  encourages  women  to  leave  theinP 
husbands,  kill  their  children,  practice  witchcraft,  destroy 
capitalism  and  become  lesbians." 

Robertson  wasn't  Reed's  only  impossible  task.  Modera- 
tion didn't  sit  well  with  his  foot  soldiers,  either.  Reed  fa-ip 
vors  Dole.  ("Ralph  wants  to  have  dinner  at  the  White, 
House,"  said  one  catty  G.O.P.  colleague.)  But  most  of  met*™ 
troops  jumped  ship  when  Buchanan's  star  flared  briefly. 
Even  in  the  South  Carolina  primary,  when  Dole  final  1> 
blew  past  Buchanan,  Reed  produced  less  than  a  majority  Ktft 
of  the  Christian  right  for  his  man.  He  rushed  in  to  take^' 
the  credit  for  Dole's  win— and  the  press  quickly  gave  it  tcif1' 
him.  But  the  return  of  monolithic  big  labor  it  was  not 
and  it  augured  trouble  between  Reed,  now  a  Washington^'1' 
power  player,  and  his  purist  foot  soldiers. 

"Ralph  Reed's  a  baby-faced  Boss  Tweed  looking  for  aa 
machine,"  said  Kevin  Phillips,  the  Republican  soothsayer 
who  thinks  the  hard  swing  to  the  Christian  right  means- 
nothing  but  trouble  for  the  G.O.P.  Still,  Phillips  is  not  alto 
gether  unsympathetic  to  Reed's  dilemma.  All  of  politics  is  zi 
straddle,  he  said,  and  Reed's  is  tougher  than  most:  "It's 
hard  to  wear  a  gray  flannel  suit  around  Georgetown  if  you. 
have  to  talk  in  tongues  in  South  Carolina  over  the  weekend.'' 


K. 


to 


Robertson's  failed  presidential  campaign  in  1988 
became  more  than  a  personal  humiliation.  It 
also  rocked  CBN.  With  its  star  off  campaigning. 
The  700  Club  nose-dived  to  half  its  normal  au- 
dience of  1.5  million,  and  according  to  Interna 
Revenue  Service  records,  contributions  fell  frorr 
$83.5  million  in  1987  to  $59.5  million  in  1988. 
CBN  was  still  making  so  much  money  that  the 
I.R.S.  began  an  investigation  of  its  tax-exempt  status  which 
continues  today.  Under  the  tax  laws,  CBN  is  allowed  to  op 
erate  for-profit  subsidiaries— but  only  if  they  produce  an  "in- 


CI 


Hid! 


ifc: 


*,: 


pbertsons  bodyguard. 


Iibstantial"  portion  of  total  revenues.  The  Family  Channel, 
In  which  Robertson  packaged  inexpensive  reruns  around 
lis  700  Club,  produced  anything  but  insubstantial  revenues. 
.  After  the  presidential  fiasco,  Robert- 
Ikp  went  on  a  new  moneymaking, 
Btipire -building  binge.  He  proceeded 
jjith  the  Family  Channel  sale,  which 
lecame  one  of  those  magical  Wall 
gtreet  deals  in  which  everyone  got 
Ich  and  no  one  in  particular  got  hurt. 
She  Robertsons  got  their  $90  mil- 
ton.  CBN  got  $600  million,  enough 
I)  make  anyone  believe  in  the  prosperity  gospel. 
\  Robertson's  deal  was  legal;  its  propriety  was 
lubious.  Jeffrey  Hadden,  a  University  of  Vir- 
ginia professor  and  Robertson  biographer,  said 
hat,  especially  as  a  religious  leader,  Robertson 
l/as  operating  "at  the  edge  of  ethics."  Repre- 
sentative Pete  Stark,  a  California  Democrat,  called 
tie  sale  "self-dealing"  by  "insiders,"  and  intro- 
ruced  legislation  to  close  the  tax-law  loopholes 
jnat  allowed  it.  When  it  comes  to  cutting  cor- 
ners. Robertson  tends  to  take  the  view  of  the  man  from 
he  countinghouse  rather  than  the  man  from  the  chapel. 
le  was  a  man  of  religion  creating  a  personal  fortune,  in 
ffect,  out  of  the  collection  plate. 

Gene  Kapp,  the  official  spokesman  for  CBN,  wrote  off  all 
riticisms  as  "religious  bigotry."  It  became  a  common  defense. 

Robertson  moved  on,  hanging  an  array  of  new  for-profit 
nd  nonprofit  ornaments  on  CBN.  He  took  the  religious 
letwork  into  media,  sales,  travel,  retirement,  and  high  tech. 
Dver  the  next  few  years,  CBN  evolved  into  a  conglomer- 
ate of  more  than  a  dozen  enterprises.  Among  the  non- 
profits, old  and  new,  were  the  Founder's  Inn  hotel,  The  700 
flub,  and  Middle  East  Television,  which  beams  religious 
>rogramming  into  Israel  from  Lebanon. 

CBN  also  built  a  small  for-profit  empire,  largely  through 
he  creation  of  a  holding  company  called  United  States  Me- 
Jia  Corporation  (U.S.M.C).  Under  the  U.S.M.C.  umbrella, 
ZBN  ended  up  with  companies  that  owned  the  interactive 
ights  to  William  Bennett's  best-selling  The  Book  of  Virtues 
ind  leased  the  famous  headline  board  in  the  heart  of  sinful 
rimes  Square.  CBN  owns  a  jet-charter  company.  A  Tide- 
vater  retirement  community,  Founder's  Village,  is  in  the 
jlanning  stages  and  down  payments  have  been  taken.  The 
letwork  also  invested  $10  million  in  the  Asia  Pacific  Me- 
iia  Corporation  and  gained  a  partnership  with  the  wealthy 
Dentecostal  entrepreneur  Kay  Peng  Khoo,  a  Malaysian  who 
>wns  the  religious  theme  park  Heritage  U.S.A. 

Robertson  bought  and  sold  almost  compulsively.  Some 
)f  the  companies  were  quickly  unloaded  or  passed  out  of 
:xistence,  and  dollar  figures  on  many  are  obscure.  But  by 
1995,  CBN  was  operating  on  revenues  of  $100  million,  of 
vhich  $83  million  came  from  donations,  an  $8.7  million 
Irop  from  1994.  It  was  big  business. 

At  I.F.E.  he  bought  Mary  Tyler  Moore  Entertainment 


PAPA,  DON'T  PREACH 

From  top:  Robertson  in  the  lobby  of  the 
inn  at  the  CBN  complex,  where 
paintings  hang  of  Washington,  Jefferson, 
and— himself;  the  evangelist's  late  father. 
Senator  A.Willis  Robertson,  at  the 
American  Bankers  Association  convention 
in  1963;  Pat  Robertson's  four-fireplace, 
six-bathroom  mansion  (1 1,136  square  feet) 
in  Hot  Springs,  Virginia;  Robertson 
in  the  broadcasting  booth  of  his  FM  radio 
station  in  Portsmouth,  Virginia,  1966. 


for  $94  million,  gaining  in  the  deal  a  host  of  syndicated 
television  shows,  including  Lou  Grant,  Rescue  911,  The  Bob 
Newhart  Show,  and  The  Mary  Tyler  Moore  Show.  He  also 
added  a  TV  health  club,  an  entertainment  company,  and 
other  baubles.  He  bought  and  sold  the  Ice  Capades.  But 
Robertson  extended  his  personal  reach  and  wealth  far  be- 
yond CBN  and  I.F.E.  By  1996  he  was  running  at  least  24 
for-profit  and  nonprofit  organizations,  including  the  Amer- 
ican Center  for  Law  and  Justice,  a  high-powered  advoca- 
cy law  firm  often  described  as  the  right  wing's  American 
Civil  Liberties  Union. 

He  was  making  a  lot  of  money  and  it  showed.  He  filled 
his  house  at  CBN  with  fine  Oriental  rugs  and  antiques. 
"Opulent,"  said  one  recent  visitor.  In  1993  he  built  a  four- 
fireplace,  six-bathroom  second  home— mountain  mansion— 
11,136  square  feet  of  living  space  on  27  acres  in  Hot 
Springs,  Virginia.  The  house  is  so  big  that  once  when 
workmen  left  the  lights  on  overnight  the  local  fire  depart- 
ment received  reports  that  the  mountain  was  on  fire.  As- 
sessed at  $1.26  million,  it  has  several  decks,  a  kidney-shaped 
pool,  a  pool  house,  and  a  tennis  court. 

During  these  years  of  plenty  Robertson  also  founded 
the  African  Development  Company,  which  he  shrouded  in 

87 


secrecy,  and  acquired  a  marketing  company,  American 
Sales  Corporation,  which  exploded  in  gushes  of  unwanted 
publicity.  However,  the  visible  part  of  his  personal  expan- 
sion program  did  not  always  match  his  well-cultivated 
"business  genius"  reputation:  some  of  his  deals  quickly  turned 
sour  and  others  raised  ethical  eyebrows  once  again.  None 
did  more  of  both  than  his  vitamin  company  and  his  dia- 
mond mine. 

The  vitamin  company  grew  out  of  a  $2.8  million  CBN 
investment  in  the  American  Sales  Corporation,  which  had 
originally  marketed  a  home-study  Bible  course  known  as  "Liv- 
ing by  the  Book."  The  company,  however,  quickly  moved 
into  vacation  rentals,  eye-care  products,  and  long-distance 
telephone  service.  By  the  time  vitamins  and  beauty  products 
were  added,  American  Sales  had  evolved  into  KaloVita, 
"the  Good  Life  Company,"  and  was  peddling  cosmetics  and 
a  variety  of  concoctions,  including  weight-loss  pills  that  pur- 
portedly worked  while  you  slept.  KaloVita,  using  an  Amway- 
style  system  known  as  multilevel  marketing,  bought  the  vitamins 
for  $8  a  bottle  and  resold  them  for  $49.95. 

The  company  is  now  closed  and  entangled  in  a  lawsuit 
that  could  raise  further  questions  about  CBN's  tax-exempt 
status.  (The  suit,  brought  by  a  former  company  president, 
is  one  of  two  that  threaten  to  open  the  guarded  finances 
of  Robertson's  empire  to  public  scrutiny.  The  second  suit 
involves  CBN's  for-profit  holding  company,  U.S.M.C,  whose 
fired  president  alleges  financial  improprieties.  Kapp  de- 
clines comment  on  the  litigation.) 

In  1991,  American  Sales  offered  the  promise  of  making 
a  lot  of  money  for  CBN.  Crisscrossing  the  country,  Robert- 
son recruited  distributors  in  suburban-motel  meeting 
rooms,  where  he  personally  pitched  to  housewives  and  re- 
tirees eager  to  get  in  on  his  prosperity  gospel.  In  one  pro- 
motional videotape  he  extolled  the  company's  multilevel 
marketing  as  "one  of  the  greatest  expressions  of  the  bibli- 
cal principles  of  prosperity  that  I  know  of." 

Biblical  prosperity  was  not  so  easily  achieved.  The  new 
venture  quickly  lost  $4  million.  Four  company  presidents 
came  and  went  in  four  years.  The  second  was  abruptly  sacked, 
according  to  court  documents,  when  an  employee  told  Robert- 
son the  boss  was  operating  the  company  as  an  illegal 
pyramid  scheme.  That  official,  Bill  Newell,  adamantly  de- 
nies the  charge  and  says  the  marketing  plan  had  been  ap- 
proved by  a  company  lawyer.  But  the  employee  making 
the  charge,  Mark  Peterson,  suddenly  found  himself  pro- 
moted from  a  $6-an-hour  shipping  clerk  to  company  pres- 
ident. Peterson  lasted  12  months  and  was  fired  amid 
accusations  that  he  was  "under  satanic  influences,"  according 
to  court  documents. 

Peterson,  who  had  been  broke,  divorced,  unemployed, 
and  living  with  his  sister  when  he  started  in  the  mailroom, 
remembers  clearly  the  day  he  was  promoted.  He  told 
Robertson  about  his  "sinful  life  .  .  .  legal  problems,  and  bad 
debts,"  and  recommended  a  more  experienced  person.  But 
Robertson,  according  to  Peterson's  affidavit,  wanted  him: 
"Pat  Robertson  looked  at  me  and  said,  T  prayed  to  God 
about  this  all  afternoon  and  God  told  me  to  make  you  pres- 
ident.' I,  at  that  time,  thought  of  Pat  Robertson  as  a  biblical 
prophet,  like  Moses.  I  accepted  the  (Continued  on  page  147) 


SPOTLIGHT 

Rockin' 
Robin 


in's  got  the  great- 


est combination  of  skill  and  soul— with  a  beautiful 
face,"  says  Sean  Penn.  "That's  pretty  cinematic  stuff. . 
She's  a  special  woman  and  a  great  mother." 

Moviegoers  first  fell  in  love  with  Robin  Wright  as 
Buttercup  in  The  Princess  Bride,  but  it  is  Penn,  after 
fathering  her  two  children  and  then  suffering  through  a 
heartbreaking  split-up,  who  has  finally  captured  her 
real-life  heart.  What  appeared  to  be  unfolding  as  the 
grimmest  of  fairy  tales— the  ups  and  downs  of  their 
stormy  relationship  used  as  tabloid  fodder,  Penn's  ab- 
sence from  this  year's  Oscars  ceremony  because  he 
was  accompanying  her  to  the  hospital  in  a  medical 
emergency— has  ended  happily  ever  after  with  their 
recent  Malibu  wedding.  Long  awaited,  this  is  a  royal 
union  by  Hollywood  standards,  one  that  has  the  bless- 
ing of  the  town's  highest,  loosely  collared  priests;  after 
the  ceremony  the  two  were  toasted  by  Marlon  Brando, 
Jack  Nicholson,  and  Warren  Beatty. 

"She's  like  another  Grace  Kelly,"  claims  Rob  Reiner, 
who  directed  her  in  The  Princess  Bride.  Forrest  Gump 
novelist  Winston  Groom  has  another  take.  "When  I 
saw  Robin  walking  out  on  the  screen,  that  was  Jenny. 
She  has  that  tough  innocence."  Such  innocence  was 
on  display  in  State  of  Grace  with  Penn  and  The  Play- 
boys with  Aidan  Quinn.  Next  up  is  the  title  character  in 
Moll  Flanders.  "When  talking  to  Robin,  we  knew  Moll 
was  going  to  be  exploring  the  maze  of  life  and  going 
into  some  dark  ends,"  says  Pen  Densham,  the  film's 
writer  and  director.  "Finally  it's  about  a  mother's  love." 

And  what  does  Wright  wish  for  her  children, 
daughter  Dylan,  five,  and  son  Hopper,  two?  "I  want 
them  to  know  contentment.  Love.  Hope.  All  the  things 
you  want  for  yourself,  too,  as  an  adult. ...  I  always 
wanted  kids.  Couldn't  wait.  And  I  thought  I  wanted 
only  boys,  but  when  I  had  that  little  girl  . . .  well  . . . 
she's  a  pistol,  man."  -KEVIN  SESSUMS 

Photograph  by  HERB  RITTS 
Styled  by  ANDRE  LEON  TALLEY 


Philip  Johnson 

Principal  of  Philip  Johnson, 
Ritchie  &  Fiore  Architects, 
New  York,  New  York. 


Perhaps  the  greatest  architectural 
figure  of  the  day,  Johnson,  who 
turns  90  in  July,  is,  in  the  words  of 
his  one-time  protege  Robert  A.  M. 
Stern,  "the  father  of  us  all."  The  edi- 
fice which  he  wears  as  his  rightful 
crown  is  the  PPG  Building  (1984), 
the  mirrored  postmodern  corpo- 
rate cathedral  which  stands  along 
the  Allegheny  River  in  downtown 
Pittsburgh.  Johnson-who  keeps  a 
drawer  full  of  the  Le  Corbusier- 
style  glasses  he  has  worn  for  4<^ 
years— co-curated  the  landmar 
International  Style  show  at  ^ 
Museum  of  Modern  Art  in  1932,  t 
year  after  the  Beaux-Arts  bail  n1-  - 
on  the  following  page  was 


Costumes  designed  wid.c. 

2*H 


ielecl  by  JOSEPH  HUTCH1NS.  Works  N.Y. 


■*S     "    .  ;■;:•  *> 


he  theme  of  tl 
evening  on  January  23,  1931,  at  the  Society  of  Beau 
Arts  Architects'  Annual  Ball  in  the  Hotel  Astc 
was  "A  Fete  Moderne— A  Fantasie  in  Flame  an 
Silver,"  and  as  TJie  New  York  Times  noted  the  k 
lowing  morning,  "one  of  the  striking  features  i 
the  entertainment  was  a  scene  in  which  famoi 
skyscrapers  and  public  buildings  of  the  city,  housi 
hold  appliances,  and  mechanical  implements  can 
to  life  in  forming  'The  Skyline  of  New  York.'" 
This  bizarre  postmidnight  pageant  was  a  eel 
bration  of  the  great  transformation  in  Manhatt; 
architecture  during  the  1920s— the  end  of  the  fir 
age  of  the  skyscraper.  And,  as  the  Times  accou 
added,  "most  of  the  representations  of  widely  knov* 
buildings  were  worn  by  the  architects  who  d 
signed  the  structures."  While  the  paper  failed 
mention  any  names,  photographs  from  that  eveniu 
of  infamy  reveal,  among  other  civic  spires,  tl 
Waldorf-Astoria  hotel  (as  worn  by  Leonai' 
Schultze),  the  Squibb  Building  (as  worn  by  EB 
Jacques  Kahn),  One  Wall  Street  (as  worn  1 
Ralph  Walker),  and  the  Chrysler  Building  (i 
worn  by  William  Van  Alen).  Together,  this  in 
probably  zoned  collection  (Continued  on  page  14- 


Sir  Norman  Foster 

Principal  of  Foster  and  Partners, 
London,  England. 

A  modernist  and  high-technologist 
to  the  core  (he  even  pilots  his  own  hel- 
icopter), Foster  wears  his  Hong  Kong 
Shanghai  Bank  {1986)  as  he  emerges 
from  the  waters  of  Victoria  Harbour. 
The  bulk  of  the  structure  is  strapped 
to  his  back,  oxygen-tank-style.  The 
street  facade.  is,-affixed  to  his  front 
like  a  protective  breastplate.  ("Finally," 
Foster  notedi.'ltrapped  by  the  monster  I 
created!")  The  brilliantly  organized 
56-story  tower  _of,  glass  and  steel 
is  among. the  most  inspired, high-rise 
structures  of  the  1980s— a:  triumph  of 
very  late  modernism  that' is  perhaps 
the  f o re mpst' symbol  of  the  emerg- 
ing economf  i  ob\\iM  of.;th'e;'Far  feast. 


"The  Skyline  of  New  York"  pageant  at  the  19 

Beaux-Arts  ball.  Hotel  Astor,  New  York  City.  From  Id 

A.  Stewart  Walker,  Leonard  Schult.i 

Ely  Jacques  Kahn,  William  Yan  Alen,  Ralph  Walkl 

D.  Everett  Waid,  Joseph  H.  Freedlandi 


Cesar  Pel 


Principal  of  Cesar  Pelli 
&  Associates  inc.. 
New  Haven,  Connecticut; 
dean  of  the  Yale 
School  of  Architecture. 
1977  to  1984. 

Pelli  is  wearing  his  Carr  ■ 
Hall  Tower  (1991),  which 
gracefully  60  stories  above 
Manhattan's  famed  concert 
hall  and  is  one  of  the  great 
recent  additions  to  the  city's 
skyline.  Only  50  feet  wide 
at  its  thinnest  point,  the 
building  is  one  of  the  slim- 
mest ever  constructed.  Cur- 
rently, Pelli  is  at  work  on 
what  will  become  the  two 
tallest  structures  ever  built, 
the  Petronas  Twin  Towers 
in  Kuala  Lumpur,  sched- 
uled for  completion  in  1997. 


naniaMaaBaaflflt 


CTaiCTBtMnmp.^.1..^>,-.„. 


T 

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n 


Michael 
Graves 

Principal  of  Michael  Graves, 
Architect  Princeton, 
New  Jersey;  Schirmer 
Professor  of  Architecture  at 
Princeton  University. 

The  breakout  boy  of  the 
1980s,  Michael  Graves  per- 
sonifies postmodernism. 
Here  he  wears  his  Humana 
Building  (1985),  a  26-story 
pink  granite  office  tower 
in  Louisville,  Kentucky. 
Among  the  most  prolific 
architects  ever,  Graves  has 
also  designed  nearly  600 
products,  ranging  from 
armchairs  and  flatware  to 
Fieldcrest  dust  ruffle. 


/ 


Charles  Gwathmey 

Principal  of  Gwathmey  Siegel  &  Associates 
Architects,  New  York,  New  York. 

Gwathmey  wears  the  house  that  he  designed 
for  his  parents  in  Amagansett,  New  York,  in 
1965.  The  cedar-clad  structure,  which  owes 
much  to  the  principles  of  Le  Corbusier.  was 
built  before  Gwathmey  earned  his  architect's 
license.  When  he  finally  went  to  take  his  licens- 
ing exam— which  he  had  failed  three  times— 
Gwathmey  discovered  a  picture  of  the  house 
and  its  matching  studio  in  a  multiple-choice 
question.  The  other  houses  shown  were  the 
Farnsworth  House,  by  Ludwig  Mies  van  der 
Rohe,  and  Fallingwater,  by  Frank  Lloyd  Wright. 


iRichard  Meier 

Principal  of  Richard  Meier  &  Partners, 
i  New  York,  New  York. 

Meier  almost  surely  wins  the  title  of  architect 
of  the  decade.  He  is  clad  here  in  his  1995 
Museum  of  Contemporary  Art  in  Barcelona 
(a  very  well-received  building).  But  it  is  another 
Meier  museum  project,  the  Getty  Center,  in  Los 
Angeles-at  close  to  $1  billion,  perhaps  the 
largest  architectural  commission  in  history— 
that  is  fueling  most  of  the  excitement  and 
gossip  in  design  circles  these  days.  The  Getty 
Center  is  scheduled  to  open  in  late  1997. 


Peter  Eisenman 


Principal  of  Eisenman  Architects,  New  York,  New  York;  founder 
of  the  Institute  for  Architecture  and  Urban  Studies. 

A  modernist  turned  deconstructivist,  and  among  the  most  provocative 
and  theoretical  of  architects,  Eisenman  wears  his  unbuilt  Max  Reinhardt 
tower  (Berlin)  as  pants.  Based  on  the  form  of  the  Mobius  strip,  which, 
according  to  Eisenman,  "symbolizes  infinite  thought,"  the  38-story  glass 
tower  is  intended  to  be  used  as  a  theatrical  and  cultural  center.  Its  impos- 
ing, almost  disquieting  hulk  corresponds  to  Eisenman's  theories  of  design 
as  shock  therapy— an  epater  /es  bourgeois  attitude  that  may  account 
for  the  fact  that  only  22  of  his  79  design  projects  have  been  built. 


^W- 1§£ 


Philippe  Starck 

Principal  of  Starck-Ubik, 
Issy-les-Moulineaux,  France. 

Starck,  wearing  his  b'old,  gestural  Nani 
Nani  building  (1989),-  is  equipped  for  high- 
speed intergalactic  travel.  The  building's 
permanent  site  on„Earth,  however,  is  a 
crowded  neighborhood  in  Tokyo.  Covered 
by  strips  of  green  oxidized  copper,  Nani 
Nani  houses  a  restaurant,  offices,  and 
showrooms.  "When  I  design  Nani  Nani," 
Starck  recalled  in  his  colorful  Franglais, 
"I  said  it  will  be  the  first  building  alive.  It 
is  named  for  a  monster  in  Japan.  'Ah!  Nani 
Nani!'  is*"what  you  say  when  you  see  a 
ghost— it  means  that  what  you  can't  name." 


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Robert  A.  M.  Stern 

Principal  of  Robert  A.  M.  Stern  Architects, 
New  York,  New  York;  professor  at  the  Columbia 
University  Graduate  School  of  Architecture, 
Planning,  and  Preservation;  co-author  of  three 
mammoth  and  remarkable  architectural 
histories:  New  York  1300,  New  York  1930, 
and  New  York  1960. 

Stern  wears  the  Disney  Feature  Animation 
Building  (1994).  His  creation  actually  sits 
astride  the  134  Freeway  at  the  Walt  Disney 
Studios  in  Burbank,  California.  The  entrance 
to  the  three-story  structure  is  marked  by  a  65- 
foot-high  cone-shaped  tower— a  bold  reference 
to  Mickey  Mouse's  hat  in  his  famous  role  as  the 
Sorcerer's  Apprentice  in  Fantasia.  Stern's  yellow 
gloves  are  in  homage  to  his  patron  mouse. 


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? 


Oliver  Stone  s 
Natural  Born  Killers 
has  been  linked 
to  more  violence  than 
any  other  movie. 
But  when  John  Grisham 
learned  that  a  friend 
of  his  had  become 
the  latest  victim  of  one 
such  copycat  killing, 
the  best-selling 
novelist  and  laT 
decided  to  holt 
Stone  accountable, 
in  Mississippi, 
MICHAEL  SHNAYERSON 
weighs  the  evidence 


Opposite,  director 

Oliver  Stone  in  Hollywood. 

Above,  author  John  Grishani 

in  Oxford,  Mississippi. 

Stone  calls  his  movie 

Natural  Bom  Killers  a  satire 

"holding  a  mirror  up  to 

society."  Grishani  contends. 

"Stone  always  take> 

the  high  ground  in  defending 

his  dreadful  movies.' 


Ben  made  tun  and  mocked  the  noise  the  man  mail 


I  'm  just  in  my  Saturday  orange," 
*  Sarah  Edmondson  says  as  we  meet 


I  It's  a  little  joke,  a  play  on  the 
sort  of  line  a  proper  southern 
girl  might  utter  if  you  dropped 
by  without  calling  first.  At  19, 
Sarah  looks  like  a  sorority  sister, 
her  long,  reddish-blond  hair  neat- 
ly brushed,  her  eyes  friendly 
behind  gold-rimmed  glasses. 
The  orange  jumpsuit  is  what  she 
wears  every  day— it's  standard 
issue  here  at  the  Tangipahoa  Parish 
jail  in  Amite,  Louisiana. 

Many  of  Sarah's  jailmates  come 
from  broken  homes.  Her  own  par- 
ents have  been  married  for  26  years. 
Her  father  is  a  district-court  judge  in 
Oklahoma,  her  uncle  is  the  state's  at- 
torney general,  her  grandfather  was 
a  congressman,  her  great-uncle  was  a 
governor  and  U.S.  senator.  Yet  Sarah 
Edmondson  stands  accused  of  walk- 
ing into  a  convenience  store  in  near- 
by Ponchatoula  at  about  11:50  p.m. 
on  March  8,  1995,  and  shooting  the 
sole  clerk  on  duty,  paralyzing  her  for 
life.  Sarah  and  her  boyfriend,  Ben  Dar- 
ras,  arrested  as  the  getaway  driver, 
are  also  implicated  in  the  killing  of 
a  man  the  previous  day  in  Hernan- 
do, Mississippi.  Before  their  grisly  road 
trip,  according  to  Sarah,  the  two  in- 
gested copious  amounts  of  hallu- 
cinogenic drugs. 

They  also  watched  the  movie  Nat- 
ural Born  Killers  again,  and  again, 
and  again. 

Though  the  two  were  arrested  in  June 
1995,  the  link  to  Oliver  Stone's'  film 
surfaced  only  last  winter  in  a  pre-trial 
proceeding.  Among  those  trying  to 
make  sense  of  the  crimes  was,  as  it 
happened,  America's  most  successful 
lawyer  turned  novelist,  John  Grisham. 
Often  in  his  years  as  a  Mississippi  lawyer 
and  legislator,  Grisham  had  paused  to 
chat  in  the  Hernando  courthouse  square 
with  William  Savage,  a  well-liked  man 
in  town  who  worked  at  a  local  cotton 
gin.  When  Grisham  learned  that  his 
friend  might  have  been  the  victim  of 
a  Hollywood  copycat  murder,  his  grief 
changed  to  fury. 

"Oliver  Stone  has  said  that  Natural 
Born  Killers  was  meant  to  be  a  satire 
on  our  culture's  appetite  for  violence 
and  the  media's  craving  for  it,"  Grish- 

100 


am  writes  in  the  spring  1996  issue  of 
The  Oxford  American,  a  Mississippi 
literary  bi-monthly  of  which  he  is  part 
owner.  "But  Oliver  Stone  always  takes 
the  high  ground  in  defending  his  dread- 
ful movies.  A  satire  is  supposed  to 
make  fun  of  whatever  it  is  attacking. 
But  there  is  no  humor  in  Natural 
Born  Killers.  It  is  a  relentlessly  bloody 
story  designed  to  shock  us  and  to  numb 
us  further  to  the  senselessness  of  reck- 
less murder.  The  film  was  not  made 
with  the  intent  of  stimulating  morally 
depraved  young  people  to  commit 
similar  crimes,  but  such  a  result  can 
hardly  be  a  surprise." 

Grisham  goes  on  to  suggest  a  legal 
remedy.  "Think  of  a  film  as  a  prod- 
uct," he  writes,  "something  created 
and  brought  to  market,  not  too  dis- 
similar from  breast  implants.  Though 
the  law  has  yet  to  declare  movies  to 
be  products,  it  is  only  one  small  step 
away.  If  something  goes  wrong  with 
the  product,  whether  by  design  or  de- 
fect, and  injury  ensues,  then  its  mak- 
ers are  held  responsible.  ...  It  will  take 
only  one  large  verdict  against  the 
likes  of  Oliver  Stone,  and  his  pro- 
duction company,  and  perhaps  the 
screenwriter,  and  the  studio  itself,  and 
then  the  party  will  be  over." 

Hollywood's  dark  tradition  of  in- 
spiring reckless  and  criminal  behavior 
includes  one  presidential-assassination 
attempt  (John  Hinckley's  shooting  of 
Ronald  Reagan,  linked  to  Taxi  Driv- 
er), outbreaks  of  gang  violence  and/or 
murder  (Colors,  New  Jack  City,  Men- 
ace II  Society),  and  the  murder  and 
mutilation  of  a  prostitute  (The  Si- 
lence of  the  Lambs).  Two  years  after 
its  theatrical  release,  though.  Natural 
Born  Killers  remains  in  a  class  by  it- 
self, having  been  linked  to  more  copy- 
cat killings  than  any  film  ever  made. 
To  its  creator,  the  incidents  merely  con- 
firm the  film's  vision  of  America  as 
a  society  that  glamorizes  violence. 
But  critics  of  Natural  Born  Killers  ob- 
serve that  in  the  film,  unlike  in  real 
life,  violence  occurs  in  a  moral  void. 
Mickey  and  Mallory,  the  hallucino- 
genic-drug-ingesting thrill  riders  por- 
trayed by  Woody  Harrelson  and 
Juliette  Lewis,  are  not,  in  the  end, 
forced  to  reckon  with  justice  as,  say, 
Bonnie  and  Clyde  are.  They  grow 


world-famous  as  their  murder  toll  j 
climbs.  Arrested  by  corrupt  and  patho-  j 
logical  cops,  they  break  out  of  prison  \ 
like  heroes  and  ride  away  happy  as 
the  closing  credits  crawl. 

Indeed,  the  closest  precedent  forj< 
Natural  Bom  Killers,  in  the  gleefulness  >j 
of  its  characters  as  they  conduct  vi- 
olent  acts,  and  the  relative  freedom  i 
they  enjoy  in  the  end,  is  A   Clock" 
work  Orange.   Upon  its  release   in 
1971,  critics  wrote  admiringly  of  itss 
violence  as  a  social  statement.   But 
when  British  youths  raped  a  woman  i 
to  the  tune  of  "Singin'  in  the  Rain," 
as  Malcolm  McDowell  does  in  the.' 
film,  director  Stanley  Kubrick  wass 
so  appalled  that  he  had  his  own  mas-- 
terpiece  banned  in  Britain;  it  remains  ! 
so  today.  Even  Anthony  Burgess,  the.' 
author  of  the  book  upon  which  the: 
movie  is  based,  expressed  misgivings- 
near  the  end  of  his  life. 

So  far,  Stone  has  made  no  apolo- 
gy, publicly  at  least,  for  an  extra- 
ordinary series  of  copycat  crimes  s 
that  began  almost  as  soon  as  Nat-'\ 
ural  Born  Killers  reached  theaters  s 
in  the  summer  of  1994.   In  a  Pariss 
suburb,  two  shotgun -toting  French) 
students— a   19-year-old  girl  and  hen 
22-year-old  boyfriend— led  police  on 
a  car  chase  that  ended  in  the  deaths- 
of  five,  including  the  boyfriend.   Re 
portedly,  the  girl's  one  comment  wass 
"It's  fate,"  which  Mickey  declares  off 
his  own  actions  in  Natural  Born  Killers; 
in  their  apartment,  police  found  a  re- 
view of  the  film  along  with  anarchist  I 
pamphlets.  In  Texas  that  fall,  a   14 
year-old  boy  accused  of  decapitating 
a   13-year-old  girl  reportedly  told  po- 
lice he  wanted  to  be  "famous  like  the 
natural-born  killers."  In  Utah,  a  teenager: 
said  by  police  to  have  been  obsessed 
with  the  movie  shaved  his  head  andi 
wore  tinted  granny  glasses,  as  Mickey 
does;  he  stands  charged  with  the  mur- 
der of  his  stepmother  and  half-sister. 
In  Georgia,  a  teenager  accused  of  shoot- 
ing to  death  an  82-year-old  Florida  man 
shouted  at  television  cameras,  "I'm  a 
natural-born  killer!"  Four  other  Geor- 
gians in  their  20s  were  charged  with 
killing  a  truckdriver  and  fleeing  in  his- 
vehicle  after  watching  the  movie   19 
times.  In  Massachusetts  the  next  spring, 


;:;,. 


hen  Ben  shot  him 


j» 


three  youths,  ages  18  to  20,  were  ac- 
cused of  killing  an  old  man  by  stab- 
bing him  27  times.  "Haven't  you  ever 
seen  Natural  Born  Killers  before?"  one 
bragged  to  his  girlfriend. 

In  each  incident,  the  accused  killers 
were  young  and  the  violence  was  un- 
provoked. In  all,  it  could  be  said, 
the  links  to  Stone's  film  were  tenu- 
lous— a  line  uttered  here,  a  supposi- 
tion added  there. 

Not  so  in  the  case  of  Sarah  Ed- 
mondson  and  Ben  Darras. 

The  mention  of  Natural  Born  Killers 
in  a  January  court  proceeding  in  Lou- 
isiana was,  as  it  turned  out,  em- 
bedded in  a  most  unusual  document 
entered  that  day.  This  was  a  sum- 
mary of  Sarah's  confession,  which 
she  gave  to  gain  immunity  for  the 
killing  in  Mississippi  by  agreeing  to 
be  a  witness  there  against  Ben  Dar- 
ras. It  is  an  intriguing  first  stop  in 
the  journey  to  understand  the  influ- 
ence Oliver  Stone's  movie  may  have 
had  on  two  young  minds. 


I 


n  the  night  of  March  5,  1995," 
Sarah's  statement  reads,  "Ben 
Darras  and  I  spent  the  night 
at  our  family  cabin  ...  at  the 
Wauhillau  Outing  Club.  While 
there,  we  watched  the  movie  Natur- 
al Born  Killers.  Ben  really  loved  this 
movie." 

The  next  morning,  after  pawning 
Ben's   guitar   and   a   boom   box   in 
Muskogee,  Oklahoma,  to  raise  some 
travel  money,  the  two  set  out  east  in 
Sarah's  1986  white  Nissan  Maxima, 
bound  for  a  Grateful  Dead  concert 
in  Memphis.  Sarah  had  her  father's 
.38  Smith  &  Wesson  revolver,  along 
with  half  a  box  of  shells.  "I  took 
the  gun  to  use  as  my  muscle  with 
Ben  in  case  he  became  aggressive 
with  me,"  her  statement  reads.  While 
making  love  the  previous  night  at 
the  cabin,  she  explained,  he  had  be- 
gun choking  her  and  scaring  her.  (Dar- 
ras's  lawyer  declines  to  comment  on 
the  specifics  of  Sarah's  allegations, 
but  he  believes  that  "her  statements 
are  obviously  planned  and  calculat- 
ed in  an  effort  to  extricate  herself 
from  a  very  difficult  position.  What 
proof  do  we  have  that  Ben  Darras 
did  anything?") 


JttS 


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I  I 


til- 


A  %%-. 


Top,  the  cotton  gin  in  Hernando, 

Mississippi,  where  Grisham's 

friend  Bill  Savage  was  killed  on 

March  7, 1995.  Inset,  above, 

Patsy  Byers  at  home  in  Ponchatoula, 

Louisiana,  Christmas  1995. 

She  is  paralyzed  from  the  neck  down. 


William  Savage,  1994. 
Grisham  remembers 
him  as  "a  devout 
Christian  and  solid 
citizen  . . .  always 
ready  to  volunteer." 


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I  Os*M| 

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■f'                           mm 

/     •"""^"fliif " 

Above, 

Sarah  Edmondson 
in  a  Louisiana 
police  car  with  Sheriffs 
Detective  Debbie 
Brunett,  June  1995. 
Left,  Ben  Darras 
with  police  captain 
Richard  Prima, 
June  1995. 

*m' 

She  tell.  I  ran  out  ot  the  store  to  the  car  and  got  ii 


fj\  «ii  ft  i 


A  video  still 

from  the  Time  Saver 

eoimgnjence-store 


holding  a  gun  pn 
clerk  Patsy  Bj  ers. 
who  was  shot  in 
the  neck  moments  later 
March  8, 1995. 
Inset,  a  still  from 
Natural  Born  Killers. 


/V*  &H 


-*. 


* 


/< 


was  crying  and  screaming,  1  just  killed  her.' 


*..«  i 


*jp* 


£.■* 


pfe.  |^i 


<•»•»• 


:■  ■  ■■■,,.  ■  ■:,::.■..■■-.    41.. 
1 


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t 


By  the  time  they  got  to  Memphis, 
they  had  learned  they  had  the  con- 
cert date  wrong.  So  they  decided  to 
drive  to  New  Orleans.  "Between  Mem- 
phis and  Hernando,  Ben  started  talk- 
ing about  finding  an  isolated  farm 
house  and  doing  a  home  invasion, 
that  is,  robbing  a  family  and  killing 
them,  leaving  no  witnesses.  I  told 
him  he  was  crazy  and  I  wouldn't  do 
such  a  thing,  and  he  wasn't  either. 
As  Ben  talked  about  this,  it  was  as  if 
he  was  fantasizing  from  the  movie 
Natural  Born  Killers.'''' 

arah  pulled  off  the  highway  at 
Hernando  for  gas.  Ben  told  her 
to  drive  past  the  stations  near 
the  exit  ramp.  She  crossed  the 
north  side  of  Hernando's  lovely 
courthouse  square— the  one  that  had 
been  Grisham's  hangout  as  a  local 
lawyer,  and  from  which  come  some 
of  his  descriptions  of  the  courthouse 
in  his  best-selling  book  A  Time  to 
Kill  (the  movie  of  which  is  due  in 
theaters  July  24).  Ben  directed  Sarah 
to  drive  on  out  of  town.  "We  came 
to  the  farming  business  and  Ben  told 
me  to  pull  in.  .  .  .  There  was  a  pick- 
up parked  by  the  building." 

Ben  told  Sarah  to  get  out  "and  act 
real  angelic."  They  found  a  man  work- 
ing in  a  glass-walled  cubicle  within 
the  dark,  cavernous  building.  "Ben 
asked  the  man  inside  for 
directions  to  1-55,"  Sarah 
recounted.  "The  man 
looked  at  me  like  he  knew 
something  was  going  on. 
He  gave  directions,  and 
about  that  time,  Ben 
took  a  step  toward  him, 
pulled  the  pistol  and 
shot  him.  The  man 
threw  his  hands  up 
and  made  a  terrible 
sound.  I  freaked  out 
and  ran  outside.  I 
started  to  leave,  but 
decided  I  could  not 
leave  Ben.  When  I 
went  back  in,  Ben 
was  at  the  rear 
door,  pulling  on 
it.  He  had  the  gun 


I  - 


i 


in  his  right  hand.  The  door  came 
open.  I  noticed  blood  on  the  right 
side  of  the  man's  head.  The  man 
grabbed  Ben,  and  they  struggled  back 
toward  the  front  of  the  office,  and 
Ben  shot  again.  .  .  .  Ben  told  me  to 
get  his  fucking  wallet.  I  just  stood 
there  saying  'No,  we  have  to  go.'  Ben 
came  around  the  desk,  rolled  the  man 
upon  his  left  side,  and  told  me  again 
to  get  the  fucking  wallet,  and  I  did." 

Back  in  the  car,  headed  toward 
the  interstate,  Ben  found  two  $100 
bills  in  the  wallet.  "As  we  rode,  Ben 
made  fun  and  mocked  the  noise  the 
man  made  when  Ben  shot  him.  Ben 
was  laughing  about  what  happened 
and  said  the  feeling  of  killing  was 
powerful.  Ben  put  the  wallet  in  the 
glove  compartment,  ate  something  and 
went  to  sleep  while  I  drove.  We  went 
to  New  Orleans  where  we  got  a  cheap 
motel  room." 

The  next  day,  the  two  walked  around 
the  French  Quarter  as  tourists.  "Ben 
began  saying  things  like  'It's  your 
turn'  and  'We're  partners.'  I  tried  ig- 
noring him,  and  he  grabbed  me  by  the 
arm  and  got  in  my  face,  and  kept  say- 
ing it  was  my  turn.  1  finally  said  okay, 
so  he  would  quit  talking  about  it." 

As  they  drove  northwest  after  dark, 
Sarah  related,  Ben  came  up  with  the 
convenience-store  plan,  in  which  Sarah 
would  shoot  the  clerk.  "He  said  the 
after  effects  were  not  bad,  because 
he  was  handling  it  just  fine.  He  told 
me,  'You've  got  to  have  faith  in  us. 
You're  strong  enough,  mean  enough, 
and  bad  enough.'" 

By  chance,  they  pulled  off  in  Pon- 
chatoula.  At  the  highway  end  of  town, 
set  slightly  apart  from  the  start  of  Main 
Street  with  its  Winn-Dixie,  its  gas  sta- 
tions, its  feed-and-seed  store,  and  the 
antiques  shops  that  draw  summer 
tourists,  was  Time  Saver  No.  8.  Ben 
parked  in  its  asphalt  lot.  When  the 
coast  was  clear,  Sarah  went  in. 

"I  .  .  .  got  a  candy  bar,  and  walked 
up  to  the  counter,"  Sarah  said.  "A  wom- 
an was  working.  As  1  looked  at  her, 
I  did  not  see  her,  but  I  saw  the  de- 
mon. 1  shot  it.  She  fell.  I  ran  out  of 
the  store  to  the  car  and  got  in.  I  was 


crying  and  screaming,  'I  just  killed  her.' 
Ben  was  trying  to  calm  me  down.  He 
asked  me  did  I  get  the  money.  I 
didn't.  Ben  told  me  I  had  to  go  back 
inside  and  get  the  money,  so  I  did." 

Then,  as  if  the  shootings  were  mere 
scenes  in  a  longer  film,  Sarah  and 
Ben  continued  on  with  their  road  trip. 
Eventually  they  reached  the  California 
coast,  where  each,  at  precisely  the 
same  moment,  had  the  same  epiphany 
while  looking  out  over  the  Pacific. 

It  was  time  to  go  home. 

Producers  Gin,  as  the  company  is 
known,  lies  a  mile  west  of  Her- 
nando, located  in  a  warehouse- 
like structure  so  unprepossessing 
that  it  only  compounds  the  mys- 
tery of  why  Ben  and  Sarah  stopped 
there.  William  Savage's  widow,  Bar- 
bara, lives  a  short  drive  away,  in  a 
modest  house. 

Along  with  her  grief  in  this  last 
year.  Savage  has  had  to  endure  a  steady 
stream  of  questioners,  from  the  police, 
the  D.A.'s  office,  and  the  F.B.I,  to  re- 
porters from  as  far  away  as  England, 
drawn  by  the  link  to  Natural  Born  Killers. 
She  screens  her  calls  now;  when  she 
does  allow  a  reporter  to  visit,  she 
greets  him  warily.  But  part  of  her  new 
life,  she's  come  to  see,  is  honoring  her 
husband's  memory. 

"He  was  just  an  ordinary  man  in  a 
lot  of  ways,"  she  says.  "We  were  mar- 
ried when  we  were  15  and  18;  we 
would  have  been  married  40  years  in 
May."  Bill  Savage  worked  30  years  at 
the  gin,  eventually  becoming  its  man- 
ager, but  what  he  did  was  less  impor- 
tant than  who  he  was.  Grisham  in  his 
Oxford  American  essay  recalls  Savage 
as  "active  in  local  affairs,  a  devout  Chris- 
tian and  solid  citizen  who  believed  in 
public  service  and  was  always  ready 
to  volunteer." 

For  the  three  months  that  her  hus- 
band's killing  remained  unsolved,  Bar- 
bara had  to  wonder,  as  did  the  rest  of 
the  town,  what  possibly  could  have 
motivated  it.  Then  came  the  break:  a 
well-known  local  lawyer,  Steve  Farese, 
told  the  district  attorney  in  Hernando 
he  had  a  witness  to  the  crime  who  would 
name  the  killer  in  return  for  immuni- 


se 


ty.  "That  night  they  called  me,"  Bar- 
bara Savage  says  of  the  D.A.'s  office, 
"to  ask  how  I  would  feel  if  there  was 
more  than  one  person  involved  and  the>  n 
had  to  do  something  like  that."  Her  face  jlo- 
hardens  as  she  remembers.  "My  words-p 
to  them:  I  want  the  shooter." 

By  now,  Ben  and  Sarah  were  in  jai 
in  Amite,  arrested  on  a  tip  from  ar  p 
ex-boyfriend  of  Sarah's  whom  she  had  lln 
told  about  the  Time  Saver  shooting.  The< 
authorities  remained  unaware  of  the  Mis  as 
sissippi  connection,  but  Sarah  had  con- 
fessed it,  apparently,  to  her  lawyer,  i 
ponytailed  Baton  Rouge  litigator  namec 
James  Boren,  known  for  saving  clients 
from  the  ultimate  punishment  in  high- 
profile  murder  cases.  For  the  conve- 
nience-store shooting,  Sarah  faced  no'' 
death  but  a  possible  maximum  term  oi> 
149  years,  while  Ben,  for  an  armed  I 
robbery  charge,  to  which  he  has  sincti 
pleaded  guilty,  faced  up  to  99  years, 
but  for  the  Mississippi  killing,  both  could 
stand  trial  in  a  county  known  for  it!t 
swift  application  of  capital  punishi 
ment.  Boren  was  convinced  that  Benn 
not  Sarah,  had  shot  Bill  Savage;  if  hot 
moved  fast,  before  one  of  the  two  conn 
fessed  to  a  visitor  or  jailmate,  he  mighi 
trade  Sarah's  Mississippi  story  for  a  pie;; 
bargain  there.  But  for  that  he  needei 
a  Mississippi  lawyer  who  would  know 
how  to  approach  the  local  D.A.  Whicli 
was  why  he  called  Steve  Farese. 

A  son  of  one  of  the  South's  bestl 
known  trial  lawyers,  Steve  Farese  rum' 
the  family  firm  with  a  brother  and  I 
cousin,  among  other  partners,  out  <x 
tiny  Ashland,  but  spends  a  lot  of  hi 
time  in  the  Hernando  D.A.'s  officec 
casually  cutting  deals  as  he  chews  oW 
unlit  cigars.  Farese  knew  that  the  D.Aa 
Bobby  Williams,  was  so  desperate  fo> 
a  break  in  the  case  that  he  might  g« 
so  far  as  to  grant  Sarah  immunity  fl 
get  it.  However,  if  Williams  learner 
Farese's  client  was  already  in  jail  witli 
the  alleged  shooter,  any  incentive  i 
do  a  deal  would  evaporate.  Far  earn 
nier  than  his  aw-shucks  manner  migh 
suggest,  Farese  drew  up  a  statement  tha 
related  the  crime,  with  details  only  th 
criminals  and  police  could  know— the: 
left  blanks  for  the  criminals'  names. 


v. 


ipei 


lot 


Oliver  Stone  replies,  "Mr.  Grisham  has  become  a  v 


Williams  scanned  the  form,  scowl- 
ng,  and  asked  the  obvious  question. 
How  could  he  be  sure  Farese's  client 
wasn't  the  shooter?  Farese  was  ready 
"or  that;  he  had  the  results  of  a  poly- 
graph test  administered  to  Sarah  that 
day  An  escape  clause  was  added  at 
Williams's  insistence.  If  Farese's  client 
-efused  to  cooperate  in  any  way  with 
:he  D.A.'s  office,  the  D.A.  could  put 
.he  deal  aside.  Reluctantly  the  D.A. 
signed,  then  watched  Farese  fill  in  the 
lames.  Months  later,  when  Ben  Dar- 
ras's  public  defender  in  Louisiana 
earned  of  the  deal,  he  was  furious: 
Sarah's  confession  may  well  result  in 
i  death  sentence  for  his  client.  It 
:ould  be  "the  immunity  deal  of  the 
;entury,"  Sam  Dileo  declares— a  deal 
that  in  effect  finds  Sarah  Edmondson 
innocent  of  being  the  shooter  based 
on  a  polygraph  test. 

The  deal,  and  the  conversations 
that  ensued  between  Sarah  and  an  in- 
vestigator from  the  Hernando  D.A.'s 
office,  remained  secret  until  January. 
But  Barbara  Savage  was  kept  ap- 
prised. When  she  heard  about  the 
link  to  Nat  wed  Born  Killers,  she  made 
herself  watch  the  video. 

"I  tried  to  think  why  Oliver  Stone 
had  made  it,"  she  says  in  her  simple 
living  room,  a  framed  picture  of  Bill 
Savage  on  the  sideboard.  "I  understand 
it  was  supposed  to  be  a  satire.  I  un- 
derstand it  was  supposed  to  be  about 
the  media.  But  watching  it,  all  I  could 
see  was  the  violence,  the  utter  disre- 
gard for  human  life." 

Behind  an  old  partners  desk  at  the 
firm  that  bears  his  name,  Jim  Boren 
spends  a  lot  of  time  these  days  pon- 
dering what  weight  to  give  Natural  Born 
Killers  in  Sarah's  defense.  Her  plea  at 
this  point  is  not  guilty.  "It's  hard  to 
believe  that  I  could  go  before  a  jury 
and  say  that  Sarah  Edmondson  ought 
ito  be  found  not  guilty  by  reason  of 
insanity  because  she  saw  the  Oliver 
Stone  movie,"  Boren  allows.  "As  we 
say  down  in  Tangipahoa  Parish,  that 
idog  won't  hunt."  Still,  he  says,  "If 
ithe  movie  is  part  of  it,  and  if  psy- 
chedelic drugs  are  part  of  it,  and  if 
iShe  has  a  history  of  mental  illness, 
which  we  believe  we  can  demonstrate, 


then  the  whole  background  is  what's 
relevant.  I  think  the  case  of  Sarah  is 
not  really  so  much  what  happened  on 
March  8  between  10  p.m.  and  mid- 
night—that's 15  minutes  of  a  five- 
year-long  story." 

Over  in  Amite  another  lawyer,  Joe 
Simpson,  is  pondering  Natural  Born 
Killers,  too.  Simpson  represents  Patsy 
Byers,  the  paralyzed  Time  Saver  clerk, 
for  the  civil  suits  sure  to  arise  from 
the  crime.  Last  year,  when  he  took 
her  on,  he  saw  fat  enough  targets  in 
Sarah  Edmondson's  prominent  family 
and  its  insurance  company.  Then  came 
the  January  court  proceeding,  and  a 
target  fat  enough  to  put  the  others  in 
the  shade. 

"What  do  I  want  from  Stone?"  Simp- 
son says  in  his  office  near  the  Amite 
courtroom.  "If  he's  found  negligent, 
you're  looking  at  $20  to  $30  million." 

Tall  and  gaunt,  like  a  southern  ver- 
sion of  Ichabod  Crane,  Simpson  knows 
every  family  in  the  region.  That's  his 
strength.  Let  him  sue  a  big  company 
in  local  court  and  he'll  pick  the  most 
sympathetic  jury  every  time.  In  one 
recent  case,  Simpson  collected  $12 
million  from  a  drug  company  that  failed 
to  place  a  warning  on  its  aspirin  bot- 
tles about  a  rare  and  sometimes  fatal 
reaction  called  Reye's  syndrome.  Pat- 
sy Byers's  paralysis  portends  a  far  more 
vivid  courtroom  drama.  "They're  going 
to  have  this  woman  in  court,"  says  Simp- 
son, "laying  back  on  that  spine  board 
and  all  that;  they're  going  to  show  the 
movie—  you're  looking  at  big,  big  bucks." 

Simpson  agrees  with  Boren  that 
the  movie  alone  cannot  be  said  to 
have  led  to  the  crimes.  But  if  it's  found 
to  be  a  contributing  factor,  he  explains, 
an  odd  wrinkle  in  Louisiana  law 
makes  the  prospects  especially  bright. 
Traditionally  in  the  state,  if  several 
parties  were  found  liable  and  some 
had  more  money  than  others,  the 
richer  ones  could  be  made  to  pay  a 
disproportionate  share  of  the  dam- 
ages. In  fact,  a  rich  party  found  to  be 
1  percent  responsible  could  have 
been  made  to  pay  100  percent.  The 
law  was  later  modified  to  cap  a  par- 
ty's exposure  to  50  percent  of  the  dam- 
ages, and  just  in  the  last  year  changed 


to  make  damages  proportional.  But 
when  Patsy  Byers  was  shot,  Simpson 
says,  the  l-to-50  ratio  obtained. 

If  Stone  is  vulnerable  to  Simpson's 
suit,  the  extent  to  which  he  is,  and  at 
what  cost,  will  not  be  settled  for 
years  in  a  court  of  law.  But  Sarah 
Edmondson's  parents  have  begun  to 
search  for  their  own  answers  already. 

«n  a  spring  Friday  afternoon,  a  plain 
white  four-door  sedan  draws  up 
to  the  Budget  Inn  in  Hammond, 
Louisiana.  Jim  and  Suzanne  Ed- 
mondson have  made  the  two-day 
drive  from  Muskogee  for  a  Saturday 
visit  with  Sarah.  They  stay  here  be- 
cause Amite,  a  short  drive  to  the  north, 
has  no  accommodations  to  speak  of. 
Facing  huge  legal  bills,  they  choose 
the  Budget  Inn,  rather  than  the  nicer 
Holiday  Inn  next  door;  Jim's  salary  as 
a  judge  is  not  lavish  and  $38  a  night 
sounds  a  whole  lot  better  than  $68. 

Emily  Post  provides  no  guide  for 
how  to  greet  the  parents  of  a  girl 
who's  in  jail  up  the  road  for  attempted 
murder,  but  the  Edmondsons  make  it 
easy.  Jim  is  a  tall  man  with  a  friend- 
ly face  and  a  low,  steady  drawl;  he 
has  a  full  head  of  light-brown  hair 
and  looks  younger  than  his  51  years, 
until  you  realize  how  passive  he  seems, 
and  how  terribly  sad.  Suzanne  is  the 
hostess,  even  here  in  Room  210,  putting 
a  guest  at  ease  and  pouring  the  drinks, 
but  her  brittleness  is  all  too  apparent. 
To  understand  what  influence  a  movie 
may  have  played  in  their  daughter's 
life,  I  want  to  know  when  Sarah's  down- 
ward drift  began.  As  a  child,  was  she 
lonely?  A  poor  student?  Depressed? 

"On  the  contrary,"  Jim  says  slowly. 
"Happy,  outgoing.  Her  interest  was 
primarily  the  environment:  protection 
of  the  rivers,  air  .  .  .  "  Jim's  father,  the 
congressman,  helped  protect  the  Illi- 
nois River,  a  tributary  of  which  pass- 
es in  front  of  the  Edmondsons'  weekend 
cabin.  "She  believed  in  rescuing  stray 
cats,  taking  care  of  life."  She  sang  in 
the  church  choir,  was  active  in  the 
Girl  Scouts,  had  good  times  at  camp. 
Somehow,  though,  the  emotions  that 
came  with  puberty  were  just  much 
more  (Continued  on  page  141) 


i;h  man  off  a  body  ofprk  which  utilizes  violent  crime.' 


Charlie  Watts  s 
jazz  quintet 

is  kicking  off  a  new 
album  and  a  US.  tour. 

DAVID  KAMP  feels  the 
beat  of  his  favorite  Stone, 
whose  retro  elegance  is 

as  evident  in  his 
drum  strokes  as  in 
his  bespoke  suits 
and  shoes 


re  there  others  out  there  for 
whom  Charlie  Watts  is  the  fo- 
cal point  of  the  Rolling  Stones? 
Granted,  it's  an  odd  stance  to 
take,  like  declaring  yourself  a 
delegate  for  Richard  Lugar,  or 
saying  you've  never  noticed  the 
naked  lady  in  the  foreground  of 
Manet's  Le  Dejeuner  sur  I'Herbe 
because  you've  been  fixated  on 
the  clothed  one  at  the  back.  But 
as  the  years  have  burned  off 
Mick  Jagger's  sensuality  and  ren- 
dered Keith  Richards  as  craggy 
as  Auden,  Watts,  now  55  years 
old,  has  become  the  band's  most 
mesmerizing  presence.  With 
his  houndstooth  suits,  polished 
brogues,  and  that  wonderful,  gaunt  deadpan  out  of  silent- 
film  comedy,  the  drummer  ha<  a  look  that  recalls  old 
photographs  of  Harpo  Marx  ol  duty,  without  the  curly 
wig,  posing  in  garden-party  geti v  with  Chico  and  Alexan- 
der Woollcott  on  a  mansion  1;     n  somewr 


The  echoes  of  old  Hollywood  and  New  York's 
smart  set  are,  Watts  admits,  deliberate.  "Look  at 
me,"  he  says  in  his  slumberous  drawl,  one  hand 
fingering  a  lapel  of  his  bespoke  double-breasted 
suit,  the  other  waving  around  his  penthouse  suite 
in  a  Manhattan  hotel.  "Total  romance,  all  this.  It's 
like  bloody  Cary  Grant,  innit?  Everything  I  do  is 

like  that.  As  a  chilfj> 
living  in  a  prefab  inn 
England,  I  had  thati 
romance.  When  ] 
first  heard  Charlie 
Parker— when  I  wasi 
14,  I  suppose—] 
loved  it.  I  wanted  to 
be  his  drummer." 

Parker  died  web! 

before  Watts  could 

pull  that  one  off,  bui| 

the  greatest  alto-sax  player  of  all  timni 

was  nevertheless  responsible  for  the  ini 

ception  of  Watts's  other  band,  the  Cham 

lie  Watts  Quintet,  whose  fourth  albumi 

Long  Ago  &  Far  Away,  is  just  out.  Thti 

group  first  convened  in  1991  to  reconr 

music  to  accompany  the  reprint  of  Odd 

to  a  High  Flying  Bird,  a  children's  boob 

about  Parker  that  Watts  wrote  and  illusi 

trated  in  the  early  60s,  when  he  waa 

working  as  a  graphic  designer.  No  dubi 

ous  merger  of  jazz  and  rock  in  the  trzi 

dition  of  Spinal  Tap's  lamentable  "Jaz/ 

Odyssey"  ("Hope  you  enjoy  our  new  dd 

rection!"),  the  Quintet  is  the  real,  unfettered  thing,  featuu 

ing  such  crack  players  as  Peter  King  on  saxophone,  Bria.i 

Lemon  on  piano,  the  23-year-old  phenom  Gerard  Pre:- 

encer  on  trumpet,  and  David  Green,  a  childhood  frieni 

of  Watts's,  on  stand-up  bass. 

Absent  from  the  proceedings  is  Watts's  signature  drum 
sound,  the  metronomic  ticka-thwack,  ticka-f/nracA-  that  tht 
people  at  Modern  Drummer  are  talking  about  when  thei 
trot  out  the  word  "Stonesy."  Charles  Mingus  once  wrot 
that  good  jazz  drummers  don't  "play  the  beat  where  it  i 
[They]  draw  a  picture  away  from  the  beat  .  .  .  [and]  teas: 
the  mind  by  not  telling  [the  audience]  what  everyone  knows- 
where  one,  two,  three,  and  four  are."  Watts,  modest  eve 
about  his  talents  as  a  rock  drummer,  is  reluctant  to  pv 
himself  in  the  company  of  Elvin  Jones  and  Dannie  Ricl 
mond,  two  of  the  greats  who  backed  Mingus,  but  happi 
declares  that  he  enjoys  the  stylistic  change-up  the  Quint 
work  affords  him.  "It's  subtler,"  he  says.  "There's  a  lot  < 
air  in  jazz.  There's  air  in  acoustic  instruments  you  don 
get  in  electric  instruments,  and  when  you  play  with  virt 
osos  like  that,  they  drop  and  change  a  lot." 

On  Long  Ago  &  Far  Away  and  its  predecessor,  1993 
Warm  and  Tender,  the  band  has  (Continued  on  page  14 


106 


Photograph  by  ALBERT  WATSON 


HIGH  WATTAGE 


"Look  at  me,"  says 

Charlie  Watts  in  his  slumberous  J 

drawl,  hand  waving  around 

his  penthouse  suite  in  a 

Manhattan  hotel.  "Total 

romance,  all  this.  It's  like  bloody  | 

Gary  Grant,  innit?  Everything 

I  do  is  like  that." 


+  The  glorious  Northern  Italian  landscape  that  seduced 

Shelley  and  Tennyson  is  drawing  the  likes  of  Jeremy  Irons,  Liv  Tyler, 

Jane  Campion,  and  Bernardo  Bertolucci.  JUDY  BACHRACH 

discovers  Tuscany  as  the  ultimate  movie  set 


1 

1  'I 

1 M  I 

,„,„„„ 

^B 

Actors  and  others  convene 

a 

on  location  in  Tuscan) 

i'm  Stealing  Beauty,  tliefilm 

■  f :      9 

which  marks  the  end  ol 

m     m 

Hflireclor  Bernardo  Bertolueci's 

pM 

<<Jtecade-lon»  exile  from 

his  uii^k  Italy.  From  far  left. 

^^ 

m                    Doual  McC  ami,  producer 

' 

.Jeremy  Thomas,  production 

designer  Gianni  Silvestri, 

'  J8 

director  of  photograph) 

*i 

Darius  Kondji,  Rachel  YVcisz, 

4B 

Iterlolucci,  Jean  Marais. 

Jeremy  Irons,  Sinead  Cusack 

(his  wife),  IgnaxioXMrva, 

. 

Liv  Tyler,  screemvritci 

^(w.*v^i 

/      *m                           Susan  Minol. 

Wci3SrfHdh£3S™fii 

*. 

/. 


// 


I 


I 


-  t 


IMPAT1F> 

Willem  Dafoe  isftnci 

I?  tb^  stars  of  the  film  versi- 

of  Michael  Ondaatji 

highly  praised  novel  71 

English  Patient,  direcl.i 


""^MM--   suppose  you  know  that 

^^M  I  have  been  in  volun- 

^^B  tary  exile  for  a  long, 

^^M  long  time,  more  than  10 

^^R  years,"  says  Bernardo 

^^B  Bertolucci,    the    very 

^^M  Italian  director  of  very 

^^B  Italian  films  including 

^BB  The  Conformist  and,  of 

■B  course,  7900.  "I  felt  I 

BB£  really  couldn't  be  in- 

^KM  spired  in  my  country. 

B^K  I  said,  'I  want  to  go  as 

Bah  far  away  as  possible.' 

^^B  And  I  find  myself  in 

«IL—   China.  And  I  did,  you 

now,  The  Last  Emperor.  And  so  on. 

md  then,  in  the  90s,  I  thought  that 

lings  were  changing  in  Italy.  It  was 

bit  naive  on  my  part,  but  anyway 

decided:  It's  time  to  go  back.  And 

o,  Stealing  Beauty  is  about  the  beau- 

/  of  Tuscany.  And  it  is  the  story  of 

tie  confrontation— this  confrontation 

etween  different  types  of  beauty:  the 

eauty  of  the  landscape,  the  beauty 

<f  art,  the  beauty  of  a  girl  ..." 

Bertolucci's  latest— like  so  much  of 
ny  great  director's  work— signals  a  new 
/ave  in  film,  a  trend  born  not  of  so- 
ial  cataclysm  or  a  withered  French- 
nan's  sexual  abandon,  but  rather  of 
indscape.  This  wave  flows  from  Tus- 
any,  a  location  much  appreciated  by 
nternational  filmmakers  bored  with 
Jurbank  and  stultified  by  the  Luther- 
an attractions  of  low-budget  Toronto, 
fou  could  say  it's  long  overdue.  Writ- 
xs  and  artists  have  never  made  a  se- 
:ret  of  their  admiration  for  this  sensuous 
ocale.  Shelley,  that  sun -worshiping  ro- 
nantic,  once  boasted,  "My  custom  is 
o  undress  and  sit  on  the  rocks,  read 
lerodotus  until  the  perspiration  has 
ubsided,  and  then  to  leap  from  the 
:dge  of  the  rock  into  the  fountain." 
iut  he  executed  one  leap  too  many— 
ind  nearly  drowned  off  La  Spezia,  on 
he  Tuscan  coast.  (Later,  when  Shel- 
ey  did  succumb,  Byron  cremated  his 
riend's  body  on  the  Tuscan  shore,  burn- 
ng  oil,  wine,  and  frankincense  to  sig- 
lal  his  soul's  ascension.) 

The  literati— undaunted,  perhaps 
:ven  attracted  by  Shelley's  dramatic 
jeril— have  continued  through  the  years 
o  shuffle  creatively  and  consumptively 
hrough  these  quiet  timbers  and  sooth- 
ng  colors  (talking,  as  often  as  not,  of 
he  Tuscan  Michelangelo).  Visiting  in- 
llesi— the  Italian  term  for  the  pale  En- 


A  ROOM  \f  ITH  A  VIE 
"A  complete  canvas," 
director  Paolo%Taviani 
calls  the  pastoral 
country  near  Florence. 
A  hint  of  the 
landscape's  glories  is 
visible  behind  actor 
Jean-Hugues  Anglade, 
one  of  the  stars  of 


&  Jxcvt&A,  " Any*,  T^vh  hiC^t  *<%*  fc+HJL. 


I  MOMENT 

ardo  Bertolucci's  Stealing  Beauty, 
« Tyler  plays  a  young  woman  who, 
the  tradition  of  many  heroines  before  her, 
(Is  love  in  Tuscany.  The  director  calls 
■  film  a  confrontation  between  beauties— 
irl  and  the  landscape  itself. 


><*U 


.X 


-J 


•    ,  ■  ■  7 


■*■ 


«* 


*9» 


glish— have  included  Virginia  Woolf,  a 
woman  not  easily  seduced  by  scenery, 
as  well  as  Tennyson,  D.  H.  Lawrence, 
Stendhal,  the  transcendental  Emerson, 
the  peculiar  Brownings,  and  the  tu- 
bercular Dylan  Thomas.  Henry  James 
came,  too,  huffily  bemoaning  "one's  de- 
tested fellow  pilgrims"  as  his  imagi- 
nation gradually  surrendered. 

Small  wonder,  then,  that  the  cineasts 
have  seen  fit  to  invade  in  an  influx 
which  seemed  to  begin  when  the  lusty 
Helena  Bonham  Carter  glimpsed  the 
glories  of  the  lilac-covered  hillsides 
(and  the  smooth  pectorals  of  the  ag- 
ile peasants)  in  Merchant  Ivory's  A 
Room  with  a  View.  Then  came  Ken- 
neth Branagh,  who  planted  Much  Ado 
About  Nothing  beneath  Tuscany's  cool 
cypresses,  and  quite  recently  Jane  Cam- 
pion {The  Piano),  who  filmed  near  Luc- 
ca last  summer  with  Nicole  Kidman 
in  tow  and  a  script  worked  from  the 
pages  of  The  Portrait  of  a  Lady,  by 
the  grumpy  James.  Who  can  even  feign 
surprise?  Heroines  have  been  chastened 
and  ravished  by  these  vistas  since 
time  immemorial.  Isabel  Archer  was 
hardly  the  first  to  find  her  comeup- 
pance and,  ultimately,  her  destiny  un- 
der these  sfumato  clouds. 

The  only  problem?  The 
place  itself  has  the  ten- 
dency to  usurp  less  tena- 
cious heroines,  even  those 
stringently  aerobicized 
Californians.  Tuscany,  you 
see,  always  plays  the  lead. 
She  will  not  be  ignored  and  is  capa- 
ble of  any  ruse  required  to  capture  the 
attention  of  those  she  seeks  to  amaze. 
Everything  else  must  play  along.  Against 
this  landscape,  narrative  is  undermined, 
along  with  willpower.  A  chase  scene  is 
as  impossible  to  contemplate  as  a  light 
supper.  (Or  a  brief  anecdote.)  Who  could 
expend  the  effort  to  move  so  speedily? 
The  great  soul  of  the  place  defies  all 
trivial  conventions.  Yet,  like  some  deus 
ex  machina,  it  alters  the  lives  of  those 
who  pass  through  it— particularly  the 
destiny  of  those  limpid  English  vir- 
gins. Few  remain  unaffected  by  its 
magical  qualities  of  transformation.  Who 
could  suffer  here?  As  Bertolucci  says, 
"We  deal  in  my  film  with  beauty  as  a 
kind  of  healing  factor.  Beauty  as  a 
comfort.  La  bellezza  as  a  refuge.  La 
hellezza  as  a  shelter." 

Tuscan  light  soothes  vanities  and 

114 


dissolves  accumulated  tensions,  happy 
news  for  publicists,  cinematographers, 
divas,  and  even  those  too  seriously  artis- 
tic to  concern  themselves  with  such 
small  matters.  Naturally,  all  the  actors 
shooting  here  currently  fall  into  the  fi- 
nal category.  They  include  Jeremy  Irons, 
star  of  June's  Stealing  Beauty;  Isabelle 
Huppert,  the  French  favorite  now  star- 
ring in  the  film  version  of  Goethe's 
Elective  Affinities  under  the  supervi- 
sion of  the  Taviani  brothers;  and  the 
extraordinarily  beautiful  Juliette  Bi- 
noche, to  be  seen  in  The  English  Pa- 
tient, based  on  the  novel  by  Michael 
Ondaatje.  Also  on  view  in  the  Tuscan 
hills:  Liv  Tyler,  the  daughter  of  Aero- 
smith's  Steven  Tyler,  whose  character, 
as  green  as  a  grove  of  Italian  olives, 
is  the  central  figure  in  the  Bertolucci 
film.  As  untried  as  all  the  eager  girls 
who  have  preceded  her  here,  Tyler 
seems  destined  to  ripen  pleasingly  un- 
der the  bright-blue  bolt  of  Sienese  sky. 
The  light  is  only  one  of  Tuscany's 
virtues— or,  rather,  her  pleasures.  There 
is  the  topography  as  well— subtle  yet 
voluptuous.  There  are  no  canyons  here, 
grand  or  otherwise,  no  spectacular 
gestures.  This  is  a  territory  of  gentle 
poses  which,  despite  its  own  theatri- 
cal aspirations,  yields  gracefully  to  some 
occasional  activity  in  the  foreground. 
Pageantry  amuses  Tuscany;  commerce 
it  finds  delightful.  War  is  ruthless 
enough  to  qualify  for  her  indulgence, 
but  love,  love  of  course  is  second  na- 
ture here,  as  welcome  as  the  inglesi. 

his  is  a  great  story  of  love! 
The  mother  of  all  love 
stories.  We  took  it  and 
put  it  in  Tuscany."  So  says 
Tuscan-born  director 
Paolo  Taviani  of  his  new 
film.  He  is  attempting 
to  explain  why  he  and  his  brother, 
Vittorio,  creators  of  the  splendid  Night 
of  the  Shooting  Stars,  hijacked  Elec- 
tive Affinities,  a  19th-century  Teutonic 
novel  which  marked  the  beginning  of 
German  psychological  fiction,  and  trans- 
ported it  without  apology  to  their 
homeland,  to  the  nubby,  green  ground 
around  Pisa.  Here  the  exquisite  Hup- 
pert, no  stranger  to  Italy,  has  found  a 
new  contentment  in  the  Villa  Val  de 
Sogni-literally,  the  Villa  of  the  Valley 
of  Dreams. 

"Isabelle?  A  French  Tuscan,"  in- 
sists Paolo,  (Continued  on  page  146) 


<44- 


t^  /trtfelsC*  tei,icts>t  * 


/ 


ITALIAN  DAYS 

Who  can  say  how 

many  afternoons  were 

pissed  this  way? 

On  the  set  of 

The  Elective  Affinities: 

Vittorio  Taviani, 

Isabelle  Huppert, 

Jean-Hugues  Angladc, 

Paolo  Taviani, 

Marie  Gillam,  and 

Fabrizio  Bentivoglio. 


Manhattan  37 

Rollicking  bon  voyage  parties  on  the  Gallic  Line,  Amelia  Earhart 

buzzing  Fifth  Avenue,  the  $100  cover  charge  at  Nats  Revolv-o-Mat  Follies- 

BRUCE  McCALL  dreams  of  a  bwone  New  York 


he  Gallic  Line  insisted  on  inspecting  the  fingernails  of  us  customs 
guys  before  we  came  on  board,  but  I  never  minded.  It  was  a  plum  assignment 
just  to  work  there.  Little  French  maids  would  come  by  with  trays-canapes, 
petits  fours,  and  sidecars  with  swizzle  sticks  of  gleaming  chrome.  All  gratis. 
Everything  was  silver  and  white— the  four-star  restaurant,  even  the 
velodrome  for  bike  races.  What  a  lavish  place!  No  unado:  ied  detail 


Illustrations  by  BRUCE  McCALL 


went  undetected  in  the  Gallic  Line's  quest  to  top  the  French  Line's 
Normandie.  The  nightclub  house  band  was  none  other  than 
Django  Reinhardt  and  the  Hot  Club  of  France,  I  remember.  Winchell  us  I 
to  come  by  to  review  the  bon  voyage  parties.  Josephine  Baker 
sailed  over  once  from  Cherbourg,  did  a  bon  voyage  party,  and  sailed 
right  back.  Never  set  foot  on  U.S.  soil! 

—Ernest  Trounce,  U.S.  Customs  (retired, 


' 


t  publicity-hound  f. 

ge  Putnam,  the  husband,  put  Amelia 
buzzing  around  Fifth  Avenue 
:  noon  hour  as  promotion  for ' 
ming  round-the-world  flight. 
ia  was  no  natural  flier,  you  know, 
id  it  all  on  willpower  and  guts, 
nyhow,  she  plowed  down  Fifth  Avenue 
neday  in  early  fall,  just  after  we  put 
ie  ermine  stoles  on  the  new  manneqti 
ith  the  marcelled  hair.  Flew  that  big 
ackheed  like  a  matron  aiming  a  Packard 
irough  a  garage  door.  Just  south 
f  42nd  Street,  she  dropped  a  wing, 
amn  near  decapitated  Fortitude,  one  of 
ie  lions  at  the  New  York  Public  Librar 

—Gladys  Boulang 
Better  Turbans, 


eMM""" 


LiiU'l'lil 


ptitiKiSi 


Si 

SHsf 

■ 

■■ 

■ 

1 

r> 

QK 

.  B 


Lean  &  Eddie's? T 
The  Copa?  Sure.  Buf$: 
cough  up  the  $1 00  cover, 
Nat's  Revolv-a-Mat  Follies  on  53rd 
had  'em  all  beat.  Twelve  stages 
revolving  around  your  banquette: 
chanteuses,  jugglers,  acrobats- 
just  an  entertainment  orgy.  What  ruined 
the  place  was  greed.  They  went " 


bu  look  at  pictures  and  it's  skyscrapers  and 
crowds  and  that  same  New  York  feel  to  the 
streets.  But  don't  be  fooled:  New  York  in  the 
30s  might  as  well  have  been  another  galaxy. 
Mob  Day,  for  example.  Can  you  even  imag- 
ine, today,  letting  all  the  gangsters  in  town  run 
amok  for  24  hours'.'  It  worked,  too;  crime  plunged 
for  the  rest  of  the  year.  Now  all  we've  got  is 
those  street  fairs  with  fried  dough  and  snow 
shakers.  Nothing  you  could  use  to  bring  a 
smile  to  a  Copa  girl.  That's  for  sure! 

And  the  sense  of  community!  You'd  think 
nothing,  on  your  lunch  hour,  of  pitching  in  to 
help  the  construction  guys  put  up  a  skyscraper. 
People  down  on  their  luck  lived  in  the  lobbies 
of  those  swank  apartment  buildings  on  Park 


and  Fifth  all  through  the  Depression.  That's  where  thl 
Kissingers  lived  when  they  first  came  over  from  Ge< 
many,  by  the  way,  and  a  lot  of  people  say  that  this 
how  Henry  picked  up  his  expensive  tastes. 

It  was  just  a  wonderful  place  to  be,  New  York  ba 
then.  So  much  to  see  and  do.  They  froze  Third  Avenu 
in  winter  and  there'd  be  skating  races  from  96th  dow 
to  23rd.  That's  how  Sonja  Henie  got  discovered— or  s 
goes  the  story.  Summer,  all  the  big  midtown  building 
opened  up  their  roofs  to  sunbathers,  and  every  stoi 
gave  out  free  flavored  ice  in  big  buckets,  and  Kleger 
on  57th  had  that  giant  electric  fan,  cooling  Lexingtc 
for  blocks  and  blocks.  And  then  the  40s  came,  and  tf 
war,  and  you  can  see  it  even  in  the  photos,  a  whole  ci 
turning  sour  and  surly  and  rough.  "Fun  City,"  they 
later  call  it.  It  should  have  been  "Paradise  Lost."  □ 


:re  was  something  called  a  "Moletown  tan"— 
*itish  pallor.  Moletown  kids  never 
e  ball  teams;  half  blind,  they  were.  The 
itects  called  it  Subterranean  Gardens, 
Experiment  in  Crepuscular  Living,"  and  the 
;  were  cheap  and  you  were  right  there 
sr  the  Sixth  Avenue  skyscrapers.  But  Moletown— 
:h  was  what  Manhattanites  called  it— 
literally,  the  dark  side  of  that  30s  New  York 
ned-community  craze,  and  it  was 
ndoned  and  filled  in  in  '41.  Everybody  knew 
ebody  who  lived  down  there.  But 
ody  ever  visited  anybody  who  lived  down  there. 

— Maisie  Stern  Gahagan 
Architectural  historian 


Ji. 


■miwaiK 


hose  wooden  ramps  got  real 
greasy  in  the  rain,  but  there  were  no  railings,  because, 
even  in  those  days,  the  lawyers  said 
railings  would  admit  risk.  But  on  a  dry  day  I  could 

scoot  from  59th  down  to  34th  in  a  minute 

and  a  half,  way  above  the  congestion.  The  fares 

were  too  damn  scared  to  complain.  Mayor  La  Guardia 

wiped  out  the  Skyline  Taxi  Express 

anyway  in  '37— air-rights  violations,  a  technicality. 

After,  when  they  were  closing  out  the 

operation,  it  was  a  funny  thing.  The  count  showed  one 

less  taxi  than  they  knew  they  had. 

Never  found  it,  either. 

— Al  Grasso 
Skyline  Taxi  Express  driver 


ii  i     i  i  ii  wmi  ii m  im— iiiimmiiiiiii 


^jy^  weren't  invited 
to  Iruman  Capotes  black-and- 
white  dance  in  honor  of 
Kay  Graham,  you  simply  left  town. 

On  the  Wth  anniversary 

of  the  ball,  AMY  FINE  COLLINS 

recaptures  the  fabulous 

collision  of  social,  art,  fashion, 

Hollywood,  political,  and 

literary  stars  that  lit  up  the  Plazas 

Grand  Ballroom  for  a 


egenaary  m 


4   / 


u 


~   4*         «* 


From  fur  left: 

Capote  and  Kay  Graham, 

his  guest  of  honor; 

Princess  Peggy  d'Arcnbcrg 

with  Capote;  Babe  Paley, 

followed  by  Gloria  Guinness. 

Inset,  the  ball  in  full  swing. 


s  a  Depression-era 
schoolboy  in  Mon- 
roeville,  Alabama— 
where  his  mother  had 
parked  him  with  rel- 
atives while  prospect- 
ing for  love  and  money 
in  bigger  towns— Tru- 
man Capote  inscribed 
in  a  diary  the  motto 
he  retained  for  the 
rest  of  his  life:  "I  As- 
pire." Many  decades 
later,  Capote  brood- 
ed on  the  meaning  of 
the  phrase.  "I  don't  know  why  I  chose 
those  particular  words,*'  he  said.  "Odd 
they  are,  and  I  like  the  ambiguity— do 
I  aspire  to  heaven  or  hell?" 

By  1966,  Capote  must  have  felt  that 
he  had  finally  passed  through  the  gates 
of  paradise.  His  artistic  and  social  ca- 
reers had  already  hit  some  precociously 
lofty  heights— from  the  moment  he 
published  his  first  short  stories,  at  age 
20  (followed  by  his  first  novel,  Other 
Voices,  Other  Rooms,  at  23),  the  media- 
lit  Establishment  had  anointed  him  its 
fair-haired  darling.  But  his  42nd  year 
marked  as  clearly  as  an  exclamation  point 
the  summit  of  his  fame  and  achievement. 
His  annus  mirabilis  began  with  the 
highly  anticipated  arrival  in  January  of 
In  Cold  Blood,  chronicling  the  massacre 
of  a  Kansas  family,  the  Clutters,  by  two 
drifters  named  Perry  Smith  and  Dick 
Hickock.  The  polished  fruit  of  more 
than  half  a  decade  of  research  and 
writing,  the  book  was  immediately  re- 
ceived in  a  universal  embrace.  The 
entire  Fourth  Estate— magazines,  news- 
papers, television,  and  radio- 
became,  wrote  Gerald 
Clarke  in  his  definitive 
Capote:  A  Biography 
(1988),  "a  giant  band  that 
played  only  one  tune: 
Truman  Capote."  Capote's 
puckish  face  peered  out  vic- 
toriously from  the  covers 
of  Newsweek,  Saturday  Re- 
view, Book  Week,  and  The 
New  York  Times  Book  Review. 
Life  published  its  longest  ar- 
ticle ever  devoted  to  a  writer, 
and  hyped  the  feature  on  an 
electronic  billboard  in  Time1 
Square  that  throbbed  through  the 
night  with  the  words  in  cold 
blood.  With  the  paperback  rights, 
movie  rights,  foreign  rights,  and 

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other  sales,  the  book  racked  up  $2 
million  for  the  author.  Intimately 
acquainted  with  the  purses  of  such 
Croesus-like  friends  as  the  Agnellis 
and  the  Paleys,  Capote,  exasperated 
with  reports  of  his  wealth,  pointed 
out  that  he  was,  in  fact,  not  rich. 
"When  you  average  it  out  over  six 
years,"  he  reasoned,  "and  consider 
the  taxes,  any  small-time  Wall  Street 
operator  gets  at  least  that  much." 

On  the  social  scene,  Capote's  tem- 
perature, already  sizzling  past  the  boil- 
ing point,  now  blazed  with  the  white 
heat  of  a  supernova.  New  York's  lit- 
erary-minded hostesses,  thrilled  that  their 
saucy  pet  (a  lapdog  nicknamed,  alter- 
nately, Tru  Heart  and  Tru  Love)  had 
pulled  off  not  just  the  greatest  criti- 
cal success  in  recent  memory  but 
also  a  major  commercial  coup,  vied 
more  strenuously  than  ever  for  his 
presence  at  their  tables.  As  much  of 
a  draw  as  Capote  at  the  book- 
launch    celebrations    was    Alvin 
Dewey,  of  the  Kansas  Bureau  of 
Investigation— the  local  detective 
who  had  been  instrumental  in 
cracking  the  Clutter  case— in  town 
to  help  the  best-selling  author 
savor  his  triumph.  Dewey  made 
an  appearance  at  the  home  of 
Elsie  Woodward,  the  formidable  soci- 
ety matron  on  whom  Dominick  Dunne 
modeled  his  senior  Mrs.  Grenville. 
Earlier,  Katharine  Graham,  owner  of 
The  Washington  Post,  had  given  a  dance 
for  Capote,  the  Deweys,  and  Mrs. 
Roland  Tate,  widow  of  the  judge  who 
had  presided  over  the  Clutter  murder 
trial,  at  her  Georgetown  house.  "Dewey 
was  a  salt-of-the-earth,  American  mid- 
western  hero,"  recalls  Metropolitan 
Museum  lawyer  Ashton  Hawkins,  who 
met  the  investigator  at  the  house  of 
Graham's  daughter,  Lally  Weymouth. 
"He  took  it  all  in  his  stride." 


Marella  Agnell 


Mr.  and  Mrs 

Louis 

Auchincloss 


IB 


Cecil  Beaton 


In  March  the  book's  public- 
ity blitz  whisked  the  author 
to  London  to  promote  the  1 
British  edition,  and  in  April  | 
spirited  him  back  to  Kansas,  ! 
where  he  was  followed  by  TV  } 
cameramen  from  NBC  News,   i 
Returning  to  Manhattan,  where 
he  had  just  acquired  a  sleek 
$62,000  apartment  at  the  U.N. 
Plaza,  he  was  honored  with  yet  an- 
other round  of  parties,  occasioned  this 
time  by  a  heavily  attended  reading  at 

124 


Douglas 
Fairbanks  Jr. 


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and  Dr. 

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Kenneth 
Jay  Lane  and 
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Town  Hall.  Not  about  to  relinquish 
the  limelight,  he  next  planned  the  re- 
release  of  the  short  A  Christmas  Mem- 
ory in  time  for  the  holidays.  But  this 
was  just  a  stopgap  measure  to  keep 
the  motor ,  running  while  he  dreamed 
up  a  more  grandiose  scheme. 

In  June  he  evolved  a  plan  guaran- 
teed to  refuel  the  In  Cold  Blood  en- 
gine. He  was  in  no  shape  to  start 
another  major  book— his  nearly  six 
years  working  on  the  story  had,  he 
said,  "scraped  me  right  down  to  the 
marrow  of  my  bones."  Instead  he  de- 
cided to  give  a  party  that  would  be- 
come the  biggest  social  cause  celebre 
since  Ward  McAllister,  in  1892,  com- 
piled his  list  of  the  400  souls  worthy 
of  fitting  into  Mrs.  Astor's  Fifth  Av- 
enue ballroom.  Sitting  poolside  in 
Bridgehampton,  at  the  house  of  his 
mother's  friend  Eleanor  Friede,  Ca- 
pote worked— with  a  concentration  usu- 
ally reserved  for  writing— entering  (like 
one  of  God's  angels)  the  names  of 
the  chosen  into  a  10-cent  black-and- 
white  composition  book.  When  he 
had  filled  its  ruled  right-hand  pages, 
he  turned  it  upside  down  and  con- 
tinued the"  roster  on  the  opposite 
sides.  Periodically,  he  would  review  the 
list,  deleting  name.s  as  he  inserted 
new  ones  into  the  ledger.  "The  par- 
ty," Gerald  Clarke  notes,  "was  the 
product  of  a  literary  mind"— in  this 
case,  a  manipulative  instrument  whose 
considerable  might  was  applied  to  as- 
sembling a  cast  of  characters  and 
moving  them  about  like  so  many 
chess  pieces.  In  his  diminutive  hands 
he.  controlled,  or  so  it  seemed,  the 
destinies  of  an  international  group  of 
players  who  could  rouse  presidents 
to  action,  steer  the  course  of  a  coun- 
try's economy,  determine  the  silhou- 
ettes of  millions  of  women,  compose 
the  sound  track-  of  a  generation. 

Capote  toted  his  register  with  him 
everywhere,  canvassing  friends  for  sug- 
gestions. A  garn  al        disin- 
clined to  make  a  secr<  I  of  either  his 
professional  activities  or  his  private 
life,  he  twittered 
work  in  progress.  The 
Gray  Foy  remembers  '  revea' 
ing  his  plan  soon  after  its  ;     option 
'  to  Leo  Lerman,  the  late  Coi 
editor,  Lerman  anxiously  in 
"When  is  it  going  to  be?"  Cap*.   ;  n 
assured  him,  "Don't  worry,  you'll  be 
invited!"  Others  were  taunted  with  the 

126 


refrain  "Well,  maybe  you'll  be  invited 
and  maybe  you  won't."  During  the  sum- 
mer of  1966,  Mary  "Piedy"  Gimbel 
Lumet— a  former  United  Artists  em- 
ployee who  was  helping  Capote  with 
a  TV  project  about  prisoners  on  death 
row, '  produced  by  Leland  Hayward 
accompanied  him,  her  country  neigh- 
bor, on  a  drive  up  the  Pacific  Coast 
Highway.  "He  kept  telling  me  he  was 
going  to  invite  everybody.  I  was  very 
disappointed  when  I  finally  realized  that 
the  Bridgehampton  postman  wasn't 
going  to  be  there." 

s  the  list  took  shape,  Ca- 
pote  set   the   date   (No- 
vember 28,  the  Monday 
after  Thanksgiving),  the 
time  (10  o'clock),  the  place 
(the  Plaza  Hotel's  Grand 
Ballroom),  and  the  theme. 
Inspired  by  My  Fair  Lady's 
breathtaking  Ascot  scene, 
costumed  by  Cecil  Beat- 
on entirely  in  black  and  white,  he  would 
restrict  his  guests'  attire  to  this  most 
severe  of  palettes.  This  decision,  he  felt, 
would  bring  at  least  visual  unity  to  a 
convocation  of  people  as  different,  says 
former  Harper's  Bazaar  fashion  editor 
D.  D.   Ryan,  "as  chalk  and  cheese." 
Capote  explained,  "I  want  the  party 
to  be  united  the  way  you  make  a 
painting."    Furthermore,   all   guests 
would  be  required  to  wear  masks, 
and  the  ladies  to  carry  fans.  (Capote 
allowed  only  this  last  rule  to  be  bent.) 
"I  haven't  been  to  a  masked  ball  since 
I  was  a  child."  he  said.  "That's  why 
I  wanted  to  give  one."  The  masks,  ac- 
cording to  his  scenario,  would  free 
guests  to  dance  and  mingle  as  they 
pleased.  At  midnight  the  disguises 
would  be  removed.  "It  was  complete 
autocratic  hosting,"  recalls  D.  D.  Ryan. 
Capote's  despotism  extended  to  ask- 
ing a  number  of  friends  to  host  pre- 
ball  dinners.  Kay  Meehan,  a  Capote 
loyalist  and  wife  of  the  late  Wall  Street 
magnate  Joseph  Meehan,  says,  "Back 
in  the  summer  he  announced  that  I 
would  be  giving  a  dinner,  and  he  told 
uictly  who  I  was  to  invite." 
Shrewdly,  Capote  also  came  to  re- 
hat  the  party  spotlight  had  to 
someone  other  than  himself. 
ii  conjured  up  a  name  guaran- 
arouse  the  ,nost  curiosity  and 
he  most  publicity:   Katharine 
G     '    m.  Following  he      usband  Phil- 


/ 


ip's  suicide  in  1963,  Graham,  whod 
Truman  had  met  around  1961  througjl 
Babe  Paley,  had  taken  up  the  reins  ql 
the  media  empire— including  The  WasH 
ington  Post  and  Newsweek— forged  ql 
her  father,  Eugene  Meyer.  Withow 
fanfare  and  in  spite  of  her  shynesi 
and  uncertainty,  she  had  overnight  bn 
come,  arguably,  the  most  powerful  woiil 
an  in  America.  By  introducing  her  tjj 
international  society,  Truman  woul[| 
consolidate  her  power,  and  by  assoq^ 
ation,  of  course,  his  own.  The  invei 
tor  of  such  memorable  characters  al 
Holly  Golightly  also  liked  playira 
Pygmalion  to  real-life  women  (he  haa 
for  example,  briefly  turned  Lee  Radzi 
will  into  an  actress).  "Truman  absorb©! 
people  who  interested  him."  says  Piedv 
Gimbel  Lumet.  "He  took  over  thei 
whole  lives,  re-creating  them." 

Katharine  Graham,  known  as  Kaji 
says,  "Truman  called  me  up  in  the  sur 
mer  and  said  he  wanted  to  give  a  pal 
ty  for  me,  to,  quote,  cheer  me  up. 
told  him  I  didn't  need  cheering  u{k 
At  first  I  didn't  think  he  was  seriousi 
He  had  the  idea  of  the  party  first- 
think  he  had  always  wanted  to  give 
party  at  the  Plaza.  Then  afterward 
he  was  looking  for  a  reason,  and 
guess  I  was  it.  ...  I  suppose  he  cho9 
me  because  I  didn't  conflict  with  al 
the  glamorous  women  he  knew."  Ci 
pote's  celestial  flock  of  swans— Babt 
Paley,  Marella  Agnelli,  Slim  Keith,  Glc! 
ria  Guinness,  Lee  Radziwill,  C.  % 
Guest— presumably  would  not  havfi 
appreciated  his  showing  favoritism  bl 
designating  just  one  of  them  belle  c 
the  ball. 

Capote  spent  August  traveling  witi 
two  of  these  rarefied  creatures— Lei 
Radziwill,  who  accompanied  him  til 
Portugal,  and  Marella  Agnelli,  whl 
invited  him  to  cruise  down  the  Da 
matian  coast  with  her  and  her  hull 
band,  Gianni,  on  their  yacht.  All  tht 
while,  he  edited  his  roster  of  namer 
just  as  the  summer  before  he  had  proof 
read  galleys  for  In  Cold  Blood  on  thl 
Agnellis'  boat.  In  early  October  he  ai 
last  mailed  out  the  invitations,  480  card) 
bordered  in  red  and  yellow,  which  readi 
"In  honor  of  Mrs.  Katharine  Graham 
/Mr.  Truman  Capote  /  requests  thl 
pleasure  of  your  company  /  at  a  Blac. 
and  White  Dance  /  on  Monday,  thr 
twenty-eighth  of  November  /  at  te  > 
o'clock  /  Grand  Ballroom,  The  PlazJ 
/  dress  Gentlemen:  Black  tie;  Blac 


HI 


Pi 


ote's  clear  friend 
).  Ryan  whispers 
ething  in  the 
•  wizard's  ear  that 
'hts  him. 


As  one  aristocrat 
remarked,  "A  party  is 

never  given  for 
someone.  It  is  given 

against  someone. 


It  was  the  Last 

A  *  ~T\ 

mt  American  rarty 
e  Last  Gasp!" 


Y 


rincess  Luciana  Pignatelli 

with  a  60-carat  diamond 

dangling  from  her  headpiece 

greets  Peter  Gimbel  and 

Countess  Consuelo  Crespi. 

Inset,  16-year-old 

Penelope  Tree,  the  youthful 

hit  of  the  evening, 

and  Ashton  Hawkins. 


* 


mask.  Ladies:  Black 
or  White  dress;  White 
mask;  fan.  r.s.v.p.  Miss 
Elizabeth  Davis,  465 
Park  Avenue,  New  York." 
(Elizabeth  Davis  worked 
for  Irving  Lazar,  Capote's 
agent.) 
If  Capote  had  yelled 
Fire!  on  opening  night  at 
the  opera,  the  pandemonium 
among  the  Beautiful  People 
that  autumn  could  not  have 
been  more  frenzied.  Precipitat- 
ing all  the  hysteria,  says  Peter 
Duchin,  whose  orchestra  Ca- 
pote hired  for  the  party,  was  the 
simple  truth  that  "if  you  weren't  invit- 
ed, you'd  think  you  were  nowhere." 
The  writer  gave  Duchin  strict  instruc- 
tions, none  related  to  music.  "I  could 
not  tell  anyone  that  I  was  playing,  and 
I  could  not  tell  the  press  who  was 
coming.  Truman  said,  'I'll  take  care  of 
that.'"  Enid  Nemy,  then  a  fledgling 
New  York  Times  society  reporter  fresh 
out  of  Canada,  says,  "I  was  stunned  at 
the  idea  that  any  social  event  could  be 
so  important.  What  shocked  me  most 
was  that  suddenly  all  these  people 
started  insisting  they  had  to  be  in  Lon- 
don, or  wherever,  on  the  day  of  Tru- 
man's party.  And  then  there  was 
absolutely  no  question— to  make  good 
on  their  lie,  they  really  had  to  go!" 


One  of  Capote's  extra  men  says, 
"Jerry  Zipkin  was  a  major 
factor  among  those  who  pre- 
tended to  be  called  away  to 
Monte  Carlo,  or  was  it  Paris? 
It  was  so  dumb!"  (Capote  and 
Zipkin  remained  bitter  ene- 
mies for  years  after,  going  as 
far  as  to  have  a  public  slap- 
ping match  in  the  parking 
lot  of  the  Bistro,  a  Beverly  Hills  restau- 
rant. Capote  retaliated  with  his  best 
weapon,  words,  and  said  that  Zipkin 
had  "a  face  shaped  like  a  bidet.")  Man- 
about-town  John  Galliher  remembers  that 
some  people  actually  tried  to  bribe  Ca- 
pote with  "great  sums  of  money."  All 
this  shameless  striving,  Galliher  says, 
"thrilled  Truman.  And,  of  course,  it  added 
to  the  anticipation  and  delight  of  those 
of  us  who  had  been  asked." 

A  certain  well-known  man,  Capote 
gleefully  reported  to  Esquire,  "an- 
nounced to  his  staff .  .  .  that  there  would 
be  a  meeting  at  his  office  at  five  p.m. 


"■"——-- — "°— — ~— 


on  the  28th.  and  there  were  rumors 
all  week  long.  Was  the  company  go- 
ing to  dissolve?  The  boss  retire?  Well, 
at  five  o'clock  everyone  was  tense  tense 
tense,  and  ...  he  announced  that  he 
wanted  everyone  to  know  that  he  had 
been  invited  to  the  party  .  .  .  but  had 
refused!"  New  York  Review  of  Books 
editor  Robert  Silvers  says,  "The  ulti- 
mate thing  was  when  a  man  told  Tru- 
man his  wife  had  threatened  to  kill 
herself  if  she  weren't  invited."  This  time 
Capote— whose  mother  had  commit- 
ted suicide  in  1954— caved  in  to  the 
demand.  The  beleaguered  writer  sighed 
that  he  might  as  well  rename  the 
event  "the  'In  Bad  Blood'  party." 

Capote's  exclusions  in  certain  cases 
seemed  ruthless  and  capricious.  Ina 
Claire,  an  old  friend,  pleaded  from 
San  Francisco  via  telegram,  to  no 
avail.  Tallulah  Bankhead  fared  bet- 
ter, but  only  by  sheer  persistence. 
The  invitation,  in  its  way,  was  a  great 
leveler;  the  intelligentsia  and  show- 
biz folk.  Capote's  family  and  jet-set- 
ters, all  received  the  same  maddeningly 
arbitrary  treatment.  Truman  invited 
the  president's  daughter  Lynda  Bird 
Johnson  but  excluded  her  steady  beau, 
actor  George  Hamilton.  It  is  not  dif- 
ficult to  understand  why  he  barred 
fellow  southern  author  Carson  Mc- 
Cullers.  Once  his  protector,  she  had 
turned  on  him  the  instant  he  became 
famous.  Ailing  (she  was  less  than  a 
year  away  from  death),  McCullers  is- 
sued the  absurd  announcement  from 
her  sickbed  that  she  would  upstage 
her  rival  by  throwing  a  party  of  her 
own.  Capote  also  banned  any  reviewer 
who  had  dared  to  give  him  an  unfa- 
vorable notice.  His  old  friend  Ken- 
neth Tynan,  who  had  thrashed  //; 
Cold  Blood  in  the  London  Observer, 
was  now  persona  non  grata.  But  Ca- 
pote welcomed  F.  W.  Dupee,  who 
had  lauded  the  work  in  The  New  York 
Review  of  Books.  He  slighted  Tiffany 
chairman  Walter  Hoving,  giving  as 
his  reason  the  fact  that  the  publicity 
he  had  generated  for  the  store  with 
Breakfast  at  Tiffany's  was  inadequately 
acknowledged.  "When  I  moved  into 
my  new  apartment,"  he  said,  "they 
finally  sent  me  a  silver  breakfast  ser- 
vice. Should  have  been  gold!" 

"There  was  a  slight  note  of  insanity 
about  the  party,"  Katharine  Graham 
concedes.  "There  is  just  no  rational 
reason  why  the  whole  situation  esca- 

130 


lated."  No  rational  reason,  perhaps, 
but  certainly  some  irrational  ones.  For- 
mer Conde  Nast  editorial  director 
Alexander  Liberman  suggests,  "When 
you  think  of  all  the  people  in  New  York, 
there  were  a  tremendous  number  of 
exclusions.  It  titillated  a  lot  of  peo- 
ple." As  the  aristocratic  Parisian  host 
Etienne  de  Beaumont  purportedly  re- 
marked, "A  party  is  never  given  for 
someone.  It  is  given  against  someone." 

Despite  Capote's  efforts  to 
contain  the  number  of  his 
elect,  as  the  day  of  the  ball 
approached,  the  roll  call 
swelled  from  480  to  540. 
With  a  fiction  writer's  crafty 
sense  of  timing.  Capote  held 
back  the  final  invitations  un- 
til the  last  minute— presum- 
ably to  build  suspense.  After 
all,  while  Mrs.  Astor's  ballroom  may'' 
have  held  only  400.  the  Plaza's  Grand 
Ballroom,  at  4,000  square  feet.  has. 
according  to  the  hotel,  a  550-person 
capacity. 

Who  exactly  made  Capote's  final 
cut?  Though  his  remark  that  it  was 
"just  a  party  for  the  people  I  like" 
had  the  hollow  ring  of  false  modesty, 
he  in  fact  "knew  everyone  in  the 
world,"  says  Graham,  who  at  that  point 
did  not.  What  gave  the  Black  and  White 
brew  its  intoxicating  piquancy  was 
the  fact  that  he  had  flung  together,  in 
a  gilt-edged  melting  pot,  the  most  al- 
luring power  brokers  in  the  worlds  of 
high  society,  politics,  the  arts,  and 
Hollywood— disconnected  universes 
that  collided,  if  not  for  the  first  time 
that  evening,  then  at  least  with  un- 
precedented force.  "I  have  always  ob- 
served," Capote  told  Esquire,  "in  almost 
every  situation,  and  I  have  been  in  al- 
most every  situation,  that  people  tend 
to  cling  to  their  own  types.  The  very 
rich  people,  for  instance,  tend  to  like 
the  company  of  very  rich  people.  The 
international  social  set  likes  interna- 
tional socialites.  Writers  writers,  artists 
artists.  I  have  thought  for  years  that 
it  would  be  interesting  to  bring  these 
disparate  people  together  and  see 
what  happens." 

But  by  no  means  did  Capote  for- 
get about  the  more  obscure  company 
he  kept.  Eleven  of  the  gentry  of  Gar- 
den City,  Kansas— a  country  doctor, 
a  banker,  a  broadcaster,  as  well  as 
the  Deweys,  Judge  Tate's  widow,  and 


a    farmer    named    Odd    Williams! 
strengthened  the  texture  of  the  boujj 
labaisse.  He  also  welcomed  Katharic 
Graham's  secretary  Elizabeth  Hyi 
ton;  family  members  of  his  lover  |<] 
18  years,  writer  and  ex-dancer  .Lie 
Dunphy;  one  of  his  former  schooi 
teachers;  and  a  doorman  from  the  U.I» 
Plaza.   Says   photographer  Gordon 
Parks— who  claims  he  was,  along  will 
Ralph  and  Fanny  Ellison,  "the  Blac  j 
of  the  Black  and  White  Ball"-Trv 
man  was  "very  democratic.  He  us« 
to  say  everybody  goes  to  the  bat]:! 
room  for  the  same  thing." 

During  the  fall  of  1966,   it  alsii 
seemed  as  if  everyone  were  going  t 
the  dressmaker  for  the  same  thinp 
An  old  gown  simply  would  not  do  f<Ji 
the  lady,  whether  she  was  Diana  Vre<l 
land  or  Diana  Trilling.  Milliners  oil 
two  continents  rejoiced  as  mask-seel:! 
ing  women  streamed  into  their  salonr| 
their  profession,  dangerously  near  ex 
tinction,    suddenly    rallied.    Dianil 
Trilling  says,  "I  had  a  relation  whlj 
worked  at  Bergdorf  Goodman.  She  tol'l 
me  the  millinery  department  was  gq 
ing  mad,  that  it  was  absolutely  beici 
raided  for  masks."  The  store's  he  I 
young  hatmaker,  a  handsome  Indin 
nan  named  Halston,  wearily  reporteij 
from  the  front.  "The  ladies  have  killet 
me."  Among  the  perpetrators  of  tWl 
crime  of  fashion  was  Babe  Paley,  fci 
whom  Halston  contrived  a  white  21 
beline  mask  embellished  with  a  falsi 
ruby.  Its  goggle-like  peepholes  shovi 
cased  her  eyes,  which  she  considers 
her  best  feature.  For  19-year-old  Can 
dice  Bergen,  he  devised  a  fluffy,  lonp 
eared,  $250  white  mink  bunny  mask 
And  for  D.  D.  Ryan,  Halston  surpasseij 
himself  with  a  white  kid,  nose-tip-tc»; 
hairline  Kabuki  mask.  "I  painted  trij 
eyes   on   myself,"   Ryan   says.    "M'; 
mask  was  austere,  modern.  Everyorii 
else's  was  encrusted  with  rhinestonci 
and  plumes.  If  they  were  giving  ouL 
prize,  it  would  have  gone  to  me. 
(Halston  also  designed  one  of  his  eaJ 
liest  dresses  for  the  party,  a  plume 
black  organza  gown  and  stole,  won 
by  his  great  fan  fashion  journali: 
Carol  Bjorkman.) 

Adolfo,  who  created  about  125  madi 
to-order  masks  at  his  East  56th  Strei 
salon  and  sold  about  100  more  throug  | 
Saks  Fifth  Avenue,  says,  "A  lot  <  j 
birds  donated  their  feathers  to  th  ; 
cause.  For  three  weeks  it  was  a  re; 


\\\, 


tdn 


I  deluge,  one  lady  after  the  other.  I  had 
I  to  turn  some  away!  Making  a  mask, 
I  you  know,  is  not  so  easy.  The  config- 
uration of  everyone's  eyes  is  differ- 
lent,  so  I  needed  to  make  a  buckram 
Sand  do  fittings  for  each  one.  My 
I  whole  staff  was  up  all  night!  I  made 
|  them  not  just  for  the  ladies— Merle 
jOberon,  Adele  Astaire,  C.  Z.  Guest, 
Kay  Meehan— but  for  some  of  the 
,  gentlemen  too."  At  Saks,  the  millinery 
\i  buyer,  Elena  Schouvaloff,  complained, 
J  "Most  women  don't  know  what  they 
(want  when  they  come  in.  But  they  do 
I  know  their  enormous  false  eyelashes 
I  have  to  show." 

Many  women  ordered  two  masks, 
|  often  from  different  designers,  leaving 
f  their  final  decision  to  the  last  minute. 
i  Some  designers  sent  out  masks  unso- 
|  licited  to  women  they  knew  had  been 
[  invited,  just  in  case.  Women 's  Wear  Dai- 
I  ly  published  in  its  advance  fashion  re- 
[  ports  an  illustration  of  Isabel  Eberstadt 
f  in  an  Adolfo  mask,  but  she  in  fact  ar- 
rived at  the  party  in  a  tour  de  force 
confected  by  milliner  turned  photog- 
rapher Bill  Cunningham— two  inter- 
locking swans,  one  black,  the  other 
white.  And  several  of  the  uninvited 
went  as  far  as  to  commission  masks 
just  to  keep  up  appearances. 

A  V  ven  jewelers  leapt  into  the 
K  1  fray.  Kenneth  Jay  Lane,  for 
£  J  example,  converted  a  chryso- 
g  prase-and- "diamond"  neck- 

m  A       lace  dripping  with  pearls  into 
11       a  mask  for  Benedetta  Barzi- 
jt         I  ni,  daughter  of  the  Italian 
3         I  writer  Luigi  Barzini.  Seven- 
:J        J  teen  years  old  and  a  Vogue 
m     A  mannequin,  she  was  one  of 
the  "ravishing  little  things"  Truman 
added  to  his  compound  for  some  youth- 
ful leavening,  so  necessary  in  those 
youthquake  days.  Over  in  Paris,  French 
Vogue's  editor  in  chief,  Francoise  de 
Langlade,  called  upon  the  services  of 
a  theatrical-costume  designer,  who 
created  for  her  a  white  marabou  cat 
disguise.  (Her  date— and  future  hus- 
band—Oscar de  la  Renta,  wore  a  match- 
ing black  cat  face.)  Gloria  Guinness, 
who  had  commissioned  a  white  gown 
and  mask  from  Castillo,  sought  de 
Langlade's  opinion  about  whether  to 
drape  her  famously  long  neck  with  an 
extraordinary  diamond  necklace  or  an 
|  equally  ravishing  ruby  choker.  The 
editor  replied  with  the  only  possible 


The  Black  and  White 

Ball  commanded 
more  media  attention 

than  the  Beatles 

when  they  stayed  at 

[he  Plaza." 


m     It  was  more 
lite  a  pageant  than  a 
parwvery  self- 

jl  J  J 


J 

1) 

* 

t 

T 

iNi 

>S^': 

% 

^S  ';      "^T       ■* 

*     h 

| 

ISS5SB8 

"■i 

T^,. 

K 

r,         1 

^b^*Vk                       "" 

M"     '| 

'Ml 

* 

J5H 


*  ./ 


-  * 


Unmasked  at  last— 

from  far  left, 

Bill  Paley,  Marella  Agnelli. 

Countess  Brandolini, 

Lee  Radziwill,  and  Cecil  Beaton. 

Standing  behind  them  are 

Count  Brando  Brandolini  d'  Adda 

and  David  Somerset, 

now  the  Duke  of  Beaufort. 


answer:  "She  advised  Gloria  to  wear 
both."  recalls  Oscar  de  la  Renta.  The 
combined  weight  of  the  jewels  sc  strained 
Guinness's  vermicelli-thin  neck,  Charlotte 
Curtis  reported  in  Tlie  New  York  Times, 
that  she  predicted  she  would  have  to  re- 
main in  bed  the  next  day  to  recuperate. 

Other  guests  relied  upon  their  own 
ingenuity  and  made  masks  themselves: 
Henry  Fonda  glued  every  last  spangle 
on  his  wife  Shirlee's,  and  Adolph 
Green's  mask  was  produced  by  his 
son  and  the  boy's  nanny.  George  Plimp- 
ton bought  a  cheap  white  dime-store 
mask  so  "full  of  glue  I  got  high  from 
sniffing  it  all  night."  Octogenarian  Al- 
ice Roosevelt  Longworth,  Theodore 
Roosevelt's  daughter,  economized  with 
a  35-cent  white  mask  which  she  trimmed 
into  a  narrow  band  and  attached  to 
her  temples  with  adhesive  tape.  Capote's 
own  black  domino,  from  F.  A.  O. 
Schwarz,  set  him  back  39  cents. 

The  writer  had  no  intention  of  squan- 
dering money  on  decorations,  either. 
He  solicited  help  from  Evie  Backer, 
wife  of  former  New  York  Post  editor 
George  Backer.  Admired  for  her  taste 
in  interior  design,  Evie  had  helped 
Kitty  Carlisle  Hart  with  her  East  64th 
Street  apartment,  the  Swifty  Lazars 
with  their  pied-a-terre  at  the  Ritz,  and 
Capote  with  his  U.N.  Plaza  garcon- 
niere.  (To  accommodate  her  petite 
frame,  in  her  own  apartment  the  pic- 
tures were  hung  low  and  the  furnish- 
ings were  small-scale— features  that  must 
have  endeared  the  place  to  the  64- 
inch  writer,  who  nicknamed  Evie  "Tiny 
Malice.")  Taking  their  cues  not  only 
from  the  host's  predilections  but  also 
from  the  wine-red  velvet  curtains  fes- 
tooning the  Plaza  ballroom's  stage 
and  "royal  boxes,"  the  pair  agreed  to 
inject  color  into  the  black-and-white 
scheme  in  the  form  of  scarlet  table- 
cloths for  the  53  round  tables  they 
would  set  up.  (Babe  Paley  talked  Ca- 
pote out  of  draping  the  walls  with  more 
red  fabric.)  Golden  candelabras 
wreathed  in  smilax  (a  twining  green 
plant)  and  holding  white  tapers  would 
provide  the  only  centerpieces.  "The 
people  are  the  flowers,"  Backer  sug- 
gested poetically. 

As  Black  and  White  Day  drew 
near,  Capote,  still  besieged  by  invita- 
tion seekers,  cut  off  his  phone  and  abrupt- 
ly withdrew  to  the  country.  "Only  Babe 
had  his  phone  number  and  knew  where 
he  was,"  Kay  Meehan  remembers.  "Tru- 


man told  me  that  I  should  call  Babe  if 
there  were  any  emergencies.  A  friend 
of  mine,  someone  Babe  and  Truman 
knew,  called  me  from  London,  hoping 
to  be  invited.  I  telephoned  Babe,  who 
asked  Truman— and  he  said  yes." 

ery  early  on  the  morning 
of  the  28th,  the  East  54th 
Street  doors  of  the  city's 
most  fashionable  hair- 
dresser, Kenneth,  slid  open, 
admitting  a  swarm  of  wom- 
en, many  carrying  hair- 
pieces. The  salon  traffic 
did  not  abate  until  after 
dusk,  when  the  master 
coiffed  his  last  heads.  Among  those 
ladies  who  ascended  to  the  third  floor, 
where  Kenneth  himself  presided,  were 
Slim  Keith,  Lee  Radziwill  (who  had 
lunched  at  the  Colony  that  day  with 
Capote),  Lauren  Bacall,  Mrs.  Alvin 
Dewey  (sent  by  Capote),  Rose  Kennedy, 
Marietta  Tree,  Isabel  Eberstadt,  D.  D. 
Ryan,  and  Pamela  Harriman  (then 
Mrs.  Leland  Hayward).  "We  had  a  lot 
of  wives,  ex-wives,  and  mistresses  that 
we  had  to  hide  in  different  places,"  Ken- 
neth recalls.  "This  was  before  the  days 
of  wash-and-wear  hair.  Some  of  these 
hairdos  required  up  to  seven  hairpieces 
at  a  time.  We  had  some  for  sale,  as 
well  as  a  few  masks."  Piedy  Gimbel 
Lumet  remembers  one  client  goading 
Kenneth  into  copying  a  picture  of  an 
18th-century  hairdo.  "I've  never  seen 
Kenneth  so  upset.  No  matter  what  he 
did,  he  couldn't  pile  the  hair  high 
enough  to  please  her."  Among  the 
stylist's  last  patrons  that  evening  was 
Denise  Bouche,  widow  of  the  portraitist 
and  fashion  illustrator  Rene  Bouche, 
for  whom  he  created  the  party's  most 
extraordinary  coiffure.  He  parted  her 
hair  in  the  center,  dying  one  side 
black  and  powdering  the  other  half 
white.  "It  followed  the  line  that  I  nor- 
mally wore,  very  like  a  Fragonard 
hairdo,"  Bouche  says.  While  Kenneth 
worked  on  her,  Bouche  was  mortified 
to  discover  Kay  Graham  settling  into 
the  seat  beside  her.  "I  buried  my  head 
in  my  lap!  I  wanted  it  to  be  a  sur- 
prise." At  4:30,  Carol  Bjorkman  re- 
ported in  Women 's  Wear  Daily,  the  guest 
of  honor  was  still  in  the  salon  waiting 
patiently,  her  head  bristling  with  rollers. 
States  Graham,  "I  was  the  last  one  in 
and  the  last  one  out." 

Toward  eight  o'clock,  about  300  of 

133 

—— 


Capote's  guests  headed  for  18  pre-ball 
dinner  parties.  As  festively  bedecked  rev- 
elers stepped  out  into  the  rainy  night 
(weather  was  one  element  of  the  evening 
Capote  could  not  control),  the  whole  city, 
it  seemed,  was  tingling  with  Black  and 
White  fever.  The  San  Francisco  Chroni- 
cle's Herb  Caen  and  his  wife,  Maria, 
went  to  Dru  and  Jack  Heinz's  triplex  for 
dinner  (the  hostess  wore  Galitzine's  white 
palazzo  pajamas),  where  they  were  joined 
by  Alan  Jay  Lerner  and  his  fifth  wife, 
Karen,  Jules  and  Doris  Stein,  Carol  Bjork- 
man,  and  a  cluster  of  photographers  and 
reporters,  who,  tipped  off  about  dinner- 
party locations,  stood  watchfully  in  the 
lobby.  Piedy  Gimbel  Lumet  hosted  anoth- 
er, literary  group  composed  of  Norman 
Mailer,  Ralph  Ellison,  and  Capote's  edi- 
tor, Joe  Fox.  C.  Z.  and  Winston  Guest  at- 
tended Kay  Meehan's  dinner  for  about 


30.  "Winston  left  early."  Meehan  says, 
"to  pick  up  the  Maharani  and  Maharaja 
of  Jaipur  at  the  airport."  C.  Z.  Guest  says, 
"Mr.  Guest  had  asked  Truman  if  they 
could  come.  Ayesha  was  then  at  the 
height  of  her  beauty"— one  of  the  several 
reasons  no  one  complained  when  the  Ma- 
harani broke  the  dress  code  by  wearing  a 
gold  sari.  At  Carter  and  Amanda  Bur- 
den's apartment  in  the  Dakota,  Candice 
Bergen,  who  had  recently  completed  her 
first  movie,  T/ie  Group,  dazzled  the  guests 
with  her  vernal  beauty. 

The  winking  eye  of  the  gathering  storm, 
however,  was  situated  in  the  apartment  of 
Amanda  Burden's  mother.  Babe  Paley, 
who  had  been  assigned  the  supreme  role 
of  entertaining— along  with  Lauren  Ba- 
call,  Prince  Stanislas  and  Princess  Lee 
Radziwill,  Philip  Johnson,  and  the  Dew- 
eys— the  host  himself  and  his  guest  of 


honor.  Reporters  had  been  staking  o    : 
the  Paleys'  building  since  early  in  tl 
evening,  quizzing  Mrs.  Paley's  hairdress. 
about  her  coiffure  ("simple")  and  makei  . 
("She'll  do  her  own"),  and  her  doorms    . 
about   deliveries   of  food  and   flowei 
Slipping  out  after  cocktails.  Capote  ar   : 
Graham  withdrew  to  the  Plaza  suite  1  ; 
had  booked  for  the  night.  With  only  m 
ments  to  spare  before  taking  their  plao 
in  the  receiving  line,  they  fortified  ther 
selves  with  what  Capote  called  a  repa 
of  "bird  and  bottle." 

Meanwhile,  gawkers,  restrained  by  p    • 
lice  sawhorses,  thronged  outside  the  h 
tel's    front   entrance,    on   Grand   Am  • 
Plaza.  Unanticipated  numbers  of  journ;   - 
ists,  paparazzi,  and  TV  cameramen  wa  ■ 
ed  in  the  lobby.  "The  Black  and  Whi 
Ball  commanded  more  media  attentic 
than  the  Beatles  did  when  they  stayed  . 


THE  TRUMAN  DOCTRINE  ...  The  list  to  end  all  list! 


Leroy  Aarons  (Washington  journalist) 
Charles  Addams  (,\Vu    Yorker  cartoonist, 

Addams  Family  creator) 
Richard  Adler  (Broadway  composer) 
Count  Adlerbcrg  (Russian  aristocrat) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gianni  Agnelli  (Fiat  kingpin 

and  Marella.  one  of  Capoie"^    "swans") 
Umberto  Agnelli  (Gianni's  brother) 
Edward  Albee  (playwright,  wrote 

Tiny  Alice  in  1964) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Archie  Albright  Jr. 

(executive  vice  president  of  Stauffer 

Chemical  Company) 
Nelson  Aldrich  (writer) 
Shana  Alexander  (journalist.  Life  magazine) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Charles  Allen  (unidentified) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Joseph  Alsop  (political 

journalist  and  Susan  Man. 

Washington  hostess) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Stewart  Alsop  (political 

journalist) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Cleveland  Anion  (author. 

Who  Killed  Society?  "Society  is  not  only 

kaput  it  is  Capote") 
Princess  Charles  d'Arenherg  (born 

Margaret  Bedford,  Standard  Oil  heiress) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Harold  Arlen  (composer. 

wrote  House  of  Flowers  with  Capote) 
Odette  Arnaud  (unidentified) 
Mrs.  W.  Vincent  Aster  I  Brooke,  New  York 

grandc  dame   philanthropist) 
Mary  Ionise  Aswell  ( Harper's  Bazaar  fiction 

editor,  did  not  jilend) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  Aftwood  (U.S. 

ambassador  to  Kenya) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  I  ouis   Vuchineloss 

'v.        figure  and  novelist,  wrote  Vie 

Rectoi  of  Justin  in  1964) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Richard  Avedon 

(photographei   collaborated  v.  ith 

Capote  on  Observations) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  George   Vxclrod  (playwright, 

wrote  How  to  \4ui  t     Youi   H  \fe  in  1965) 

B 

Don  Bachardy  (portrait  i-        r 

companion  of  Christopher  Ishcrwood) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  George  Backer  (formei 


134 


New  York  Post  editor  and  Evie. 

who  decorated  Capote's  apartment) 
James  Baldwin  (novelist,  did  not  attend) 
William  Baldwin  (society  decorator) 
Tallulah  Bankhead  (actress) 
Samuel  Barber  (composer,  did  not  attend) 
Trumbull  Barton  (New  York 

man-ahout-town) 
Benedetta  Bar/mi  ( I  'ogue  mannequin. 

daughter  of  Italian  writer  Luigi  Barzini) 
Charles  Baskerville  (portraitist) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Theodore  Bassett 

(Palm  Beach  socialites) 
Cecil  Beaton  (photographer-designer) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Frederick  S.  Beebe  (chairman 

oi  the  hoard  of  the  Washington 

Post  Company) 
S.  N.  Bchrman  (playwright) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Harry   Belafonie  (singer-actor. 

did  not  attend) 
Marisa  Berenson  (model-actress) 
Candice  Bergen  (actress  daughter  of 

ventriloquist  Edgar  Bergen) 
Mrs.  Seymour  Berkson  (Eleanor  Lambert. 

publicist) 
William  Berkson  (poei.  Lambert's  son) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Irving  Berlin  (composer,  did 

not  attend) 
Sir  Isaiah  and  Lady  Berlin  (Oxford 

University  philosopher) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Leonard  Bernstein 

(composer-conductor  and  Felicia 

Monlealcgre  Cohn.  did  not  attend) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Robert  Bernstein  (CEO   of 

Random  House) 
LeMoyne  Billings  (Kennedy-family  confidant) 
Mrs.  Pierre  Billottc  (unidentified) 
Carol  Bjorkman  I  fashion  journalist) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Watson  Blair  (banker) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Anthnm  di  Bonaventura  (pianist 

and  Sara.  Jock  Whitney's  stepdaugther) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Charles  Bonien  (unidentified) 
Mrs.  Rene  Bouche  (Dcnisc.  widow  of  the 

society  portraitist) 
Anthony  Bower  (unidentified) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thomas  Braden  (Los  Angeles 

Times  columnist) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Benjamin  Bradlee  (managing 

editor  of  Kay  Graham's  Washington  Post 

and  second  wife.  Antoinette  Pinchot) 


Count  and  Countess  Brando  Brandolini 

d'Adda  (Venetian  aristocrats;  Cristiana. 

Gianni  Agnelli's  sister) 
Henry  Brandon  (associate  editor.  77ic  Sunday 

Times  oi  London) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Frederick  Brisson 

(Hollywood  producer  and  actress 

Rosalind  Russell) 
James  E.  Broadhead  (unidentified) 
Donald  Brooks  (fashion  designer) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Richard  Brooks  (film 

director  who  would  direct  In  Cold  Blood 

and  actress  .lean  Simmons) 
Eve  Brown  (secretary  of  gossip  columnist 

Maury  Paul,  known  as 

Cholly  Knickerbocker) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  Mason  Brown  (theater 

critic) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  David  K.  E.  Bruce  (U.S. 

ambassador  to  England  and 

Evangeline.  Washington  hostess) 
Mrs.  Mellon  Bruce  (Ailsa.  Paul  Mellon's 

sister.  David  Bruce's  first  wife) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  F.  Buckley  Jr. 

\\alional  Review  founder  and 

Pal.  New  York  socialite) 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  Ralph  Bunche  (diplomat 

and  Nobel  Peace  Prize  winner. 

did  not  attend) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  McGeorge  Bundy  (special 

assistant  to  the  president  for 

national  security) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  S.  Carter  Burden  Jr.  (New 

York  socialites;  Amanda,  daughter 

of  Babe  Paley) 
Susan  Burden  (director  of  Paraphernalia 

boutique,  did  not  attend) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Abe  Burrows  (playwright. 

How  Jo  Succeed  in  Business  Without 

Really  Trying) 
Robert  Burtis  (unidentified) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Richard  Burton  (actor  and 

second  wife.  Elizabeth  Taylor. 

did  not  attend) 
Mrs.  Robin  Butler  (New  York  socialite,  later 

married  English  banker  Rupert 

Hambro) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  F.  Byers  3d  (Hilary. 

adopted  daughter  of  William  Paley  and 

his  first  wife.  Dorothy,  now  wife  of 


former  secretary  of  health,  education, 
and  welfare  Joe  Califano) 


Paul  Cadmus  (painter) 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Herb  Caen  (San  Francisco 

Chronicle  columnist) 
Mrs.  William  M.  Campbell  (unidentified) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Cass  Canfield  (chairman  of  t 

Harper  &  Row  editorial  board) 
Prince  Carlo  Caraeciolo  (Italian  aristocrat, : 

brother  of  Marella  Agnelli) 
Prince  and  Princess  Nicolo  Caraeciolo 

(relatives  of  Marella  Agnelli) 
Leslie  Caron  (actress,  did  not  attend) 
Margaret  Case  ( Vogue  society  editor) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Dan  Piatt  Caulkins  (New 

York  socialites) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bennett  Cerf  (co-founder  o( 

Random  House) 
Christopher  Cerf  (writer,  son  of  Bennett) 
Lord  Chalfont  (British  editor  and 

minister  of  state  in  the  Foreign  Office^ 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hugh  J.  Chisholm  Jr. 

(poet-translator  and  Rosemary 

Warburton.  a  Vanderbilt) 
Blair  Clark  (associate  publisher  of 

the  New  York  Post) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Richard  Clurman  (Time  and 

Life  chief  of  correspondents  and 

second  wife,  writer  Shirley) 
Harold  Cole  (unidentified) 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  John  Converse  (plastic 

surgeon  and  Rocky,  former  wife  of 

Gary  Cooper) 
Senator  and  Mrs.  John  Sherman  Cooper 

(Kentucky  Republican) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wyatt  Cooper  (writer 

and  Gloria  Vanderbilt) 
General  John  Coulter  (handsome 

officer-about-town.  widower  of  actress 

Constance  Bennett) 
Noel  Coward  (playwright,  did  not  altend) 
Chandler  Cowles  (Broadway  producer) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gardner  Cowles 

(LwA-magazine  owner) 
Count  and  Countess  Rodolfo  Crespi 

(fashion  publicist  and  Consuelo. 

model  and  Vogue  editor) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Waiter  Cronkite  (CBS 


VANITY  FAIR /JULY  19' 


•  the  Plaza  in  February  1964  to  tape  The 
\Ed  Sullivan  Show"  says  Curt  Gathje,  the 
i hotel's  historian  and  V.I. P.  manager.  Ac- 
cording to  Peter  Duchin,  who  had  re- 
l  fused  gossip  columnist  Earl  Wilson's  en- 
i treaty  to  be  smuggled  in  disguised  as  a 
i  trombonist,  the  party  "closed  an  era  of  el- 
egant exclusiveness  and  ushered  in  anoth- 
ier  of  media  madness— the  one  in  which 
I  we  still  live." 

Just  after  Kay  Graham  and  Capote  as- 
sumed their  posts  in  the  Grand  Ball- 
room, some  of  the  first  guests— the  Kansas 
1 1,  conveniently  bunked  at  the  Plaza— ar- 
rived. Outside  the  hotel,  the  crowd  ap- 
plauded bedizened  revelers  as  they  issued 
from  the  endless  caravan  of  limos.  One  of 
the  mask-makers  who  had  contributed  to 
the  evening's  fancy  dress  planted  himself 
among  the  mob.  Eyeing  the  work  of  a 


competitor,  he  shrieked,  "Oh,  dear,  what  a 
catastrophe.  .  .  .  I've  never  seen  so  many 
pimples.  They  should  have  made  the 
masks  bigger  to  cover  their  entire  faces." 
In  the  midst  of  the  commotion,  Prince 
Bertil  of  Sweden  and  two  of  his  aides 
turned  up  to  check  into  the  Plaza.  Their 
interest  piqued,  they  mingled  briefly  with 
the  horde  in  the  chilly,  damp  night  to 
watch  the  shimmering  spectacle  pass. 

The  hotel's  main  doorway  and  two 
side  entrances  were  monitored  by  a 
dozen  policemen,  who  permitted  the  Ma- 
haraja and  Maharani  of  Jaipur  and  Win- 
ston and  C.  Z.  Guest  to  sneak  in  via 
58th  Street.  Inside,  the  hotel's  stairways 
and  doors  were  cordoned  off  and  guard- 
ed at  strategic  points.  Lynda  Bird  John- 
son's Secret  Service  men  checked  each 
partygoer  who  rode  the  elevators  up  to 
the  Grand  Ballroom.  As  if  that  were  not 


enough  security,  Harry  Winston  had  sent 
in  some  henchmen  to  keep  an  eye  on  the 
walnut-size  diamond  Princess  Luciana 
Pignatelli  had  borrowed  to  suspend  from 
her  headdress. 

Those  who  attended  the  pre-ball  dinners 
had  already  received  white  cards  engraved 
in  red,  reading:  "Mr.  Capote's  Dance. 
Please  present  at  door."  Two  security  offi- 
cers dressed  in  black-tie  took  these  cards, 
which  had  been  printed  at  the  last  minute 
to  avoid  forgeries.  Those  who  went  di- 
rectly to  the  hotel  checked  in  at  a  desk 
where  secretaries  matched  names  with  a 
master  list. 

As  guests  filed  in  to  the  receiving  line, 
an  announcer  read  their  names.  Aileen 
Mehle  stationed  herself  just  behind  the 
host  and  guest  of  honor,  where— glittering 
in  her  striped  Nilo  de  Paul  mini— she 
gathered  information  for  her  "Suzy  Knick- 


broadcaster.  did  not  attend) 
Elizabeth  de  Cuevas  (sculptor,  daughter  of 

ballet  impresario  Marquis  de  Cuevas 

and  Margaret  Strong,  a  Rockefeller) 
Charlotte  Curtis  (New  York  Times  society 

columnist) 
Thomas  Quinn  Curtiss  (Afeiv  York  Times 

theater  critic) 
j  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Frederick  Cushing  (New  York 

and  Newport  socialites;  she  was 

the  ravishing  Natalie  Fell) 
Minnie  Cushing  (Frederick's  sister) 


Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  Daly  (TV  host. 

What's  My  Line') 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Clifton  Daniel  (managing 

editor  of  Tlie  New  York  Times 

and  Margaret  Truman,  daughter  of 

Harry  S.  Truman) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Sammy  Davis  Jr.  (entertainer) 
Francoise  de  Langlade  (editor  of 

French  Vogue) 
Oscar  de  la  Renta  (fashion  designer,  later 

Francoise  de  Langlade's  husband) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Robert  Dellheim  (unidentified) 
Alan  Delynn  (unidentified) 
Arnaud  de  Rosnay  (photographer) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Armand  Deutsch  (Sears, 

Roebuck  heir  and  Harriet.  Los  Angeles 

socialite) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Alvin  Dewey  (Kansas  Bureau 

of  Investigation  agent 

who  worked  on  Clutter  case) 
Mark-in-  Dietrich  (singer-actress,  did  not 

attend) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  C.  Douglas  Dillon 

(international  financier  and  arts  patron) 
Ainslie  Dinwiddie  (unidentified) 
Sharman  Douglas  (socialite,  daughter 

of  former  U.S.  ambassador  to 

England) 
Mrs.  Kingman  Douglass  (Adele  Astaire, 

Fred's  sister) 
Mrs.  Peter  Duchin  (bandleader's  first  wife. 

Cheray  Zauderer) 
Drew  Dudley  (former  World  Bank  official) 
Marquess  and  Marchioness  of  Dufferin  and 

Ava  (British  aristocrat  and  Lindy. 

Loel  Guinness's  daughter) 
Jack  Dunphy  (longtime  lover  of  Capote's) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Robert  Dunphy  (Jack's 

brother  and  sister-in-law) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  F.  W.  Dupee  (literary  critic) 


Mr.  and  Mrs.  Frederick  Eberstadt  (socialite 

photographer  and  Isabel,  writer) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Osborn  Elliott  (editor  of  Kay 


VANITY  FAIR  /JULY  1996 


Graham's  Newsweek,  later  inspiration 

for  a  central  character  in  John  Guare's 

Six  Degrees  of  Separatum) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ralph  Ellison  (author.  Tile 

In  visible  Man) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Charles  Engelhard  (heir  to 

precious-metals  family  and  Jane,  socialite) 
Jean  Ennis  (director  of  publicity  at 

Random  House) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jason  Epstein  (Random 

House  editor  and  first  wife,  Barbara, 

editor  at  Tlie  New  York  Review  of  Books) 
Elliott  Erwitt  (photographer) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Rowland  Evans  Jr.  (half  of 

Evans  and  Novak  pundit  pair) 


Mr.  and  Mrs.  Douglas  Fairbanks  Jr.  (movie 

star  and  second  wife.  Mary  Lee) 
William  Farenga  (interior  designer,  did  not 

attend) 
Mrs.  John  R.  Fell  (New  York  socialite) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Mel  Ferrer  (actor  and  third 

wife,  Audrey  Hepburn,  did  not  attend) 
Mrs.  Marshall  Field  (widow  of 

department-store  heir) 
Jason  Biddle  Fishbein  (unidentified) 
Frances  FitzGerald  (writer,  older  daughter  of 

Marietta  Peabody  Tree) 
Janet  Flanner  (New  Yorker  Paris 

correspondent  with  pen  name  Genet) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Henry  Fonda  (actor  and 

fifth  wife.  Shirlee) 
Joan  Fontaine  (actress) 
Mr  and  Mrs.  Henry  Ford  II  (grandson  of 

Ford  founder  and  Cristina. 

Grosse  Pointe  socialite) 
Mrs.  McDonnell  Ford  (Anne,  ex-wife  of 

Henry) 
Michael  Forrestal  (son  of  former  U.S. 

secretary  of  state) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  James  Fosburgh  (artist 

and  Mary,  Babe  Paley's  sister 

and  former  Mrs.  Vinceni  Astor) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Joseph  Fox  (Capote's  editor 

at  Random  House) 
Gray  Fo>  (artist) 

Mrs.  Jared  French  (widow  of  painter) 
Lawrence  Fried  (photographer) 
Mrs.  Donald  Friede  (Eleanor,  friend  of 

Capote's  mother's) 
Clayton  Fritchey  (Washington  insider  and 

columnist,  did  not  attend) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Winston  Frost  (New  York 

socialites) 

G 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Martin  Gabel  (actor  and 
Arlene  Francis   TV  personality) 


Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  Kenneth  Galbraith 

(Kennedy-circle  economist) 
John  Galliher  (man-about-town) 
Greta  Garbo  (movie  actress) 
Geoffrey  Gates  (stockbroker) 
Henry  Geldzahler  (modern-art  curator  at 

Metropolitan  Museum) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Brendan  Gill  (New  Yorker 

writer) 
Genevieve  Giliaizeau  (French  model, 

girlfriend  of  Darryl  Zanuck) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Roswell  Gilpatrie  (friends  of 

the  Kennedys') 
Mrs.  Bailey  Gimbel  (Piedy,  Capote's 

Long  Island  neighbor) 
Peter  Gimbel  (department-store  heir) 
Bernard  Giquel  (unidentified) 
Peter  GlenviUe  (British  director) 
Tony  Godwin  (unidentified) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wdliam  Goetz  (Hollywood 

executive  and  Edith,  the  daughter  of  mogul 

Louis  B.  Mayer) 
Ambassador  and  Mrs.  Arthur  J.  Goldberg 

(former  Supreme  Court  justice, 

did  not  attend) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Samuel  Goldwyn  (Hollywood 

producer,  did  not  attend) 
Henry  Golightly  (business  consultant, 

did  not  attend) 
Mark  Goodson  (TV  game-show  producer) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Richard  Goodwin  (JFK. 

speechwriter) 
Mrs.  Philip  Graham  (Kay.  Capote's  guest  of 

honor) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Adolph  Green  (lyricist  and 

Phyllis  Newman,  actress) 
G.  Lauder  Greenway  (chairman  of 

Metropolitan  Opera  Association) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Stephane  Groueff  (socialites; 

Lil.  a  legendary  beauty) 
Mrs.  Polk  Guest  (ex-wife  of  former  U.S. 

ambassador  to  Ireland  Raymond  Guest) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Winston  Guest  (Long  Island 

socialite  and  C.Z.,  one  of  Capote's  "swans") 
Mrs.  Loel  Guinness  (Gloria,  another 

of  the  "swans,"  wife  of  the  British  banker) 
Thomas  Guinzburg  (president  of  Viking  Press) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  Gunther  (best-selling 

political  writer) 
Baron  Nicolas  de  Gunzburg  (fashion  editor, 

l  bgue) 
David  Guthrie  (unidentified) 

H 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  Haddad  (journalist. 

government  official) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Richard  Halliday  (theatrical 

producer  and  singer-actress  Mary  Martin) 
lli.msh  Hamilton  (London  publisher) 


Jean  Hannon  (unidentified) 

Earl  of  Hardwicke  (British  aristocrat) 

Ambassador  and  Mrs.  W.  Averell  Harriman 

(former  New  York  governor  and 

second  wife,  Marie) 
Mrs.  Moss  Hart  (actress  Kitty  Carlisle. 

widow  of  the  playwright) 
Ashton  Hawkins  (Metropolitan  Museum 

lawyer) 
Kitty  Hawks  (daughter  of  "swan"  Slim  Keith 

and  director  Howard  Hawks) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Harold  Hayes  (editor  of 

Esquire) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Peter  Lind  Hayes  (actor  and 

Mary  Healy,  actress) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lennie  Hayton 

(former  musical  director  at  MGM 

and  singer  Lena  Home) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  I  eland  Hayward 

(agent-producer  and  fourth  wife, 

currently  Pamela  Harriman) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  Randolph  Hearst  Jr. 

(communications  heir) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Henry  J.  Heinz  II 

(processed-food  heir) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Andrew  Heiskell 

(Time  Inc.  board  chairman  and 

Marian,  of  the  New  York  Times 

Sulzbergers) 
Lillian  Hellman  (playwright) 
John  H.  Heminway  (unidentified) 
Princess  Domietta  Herculani  (unidentified) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Reinaldo  Herrera 

(international  socialites;  Mimi,  a 

renowned  beauty;  did  not  attend) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  Hersey  (writer) 
Milton  Holden  (unidentified) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Arthur  Hornblow  (film 

producer) 
Helene  Horsent  (unidentified) 
Horst  P.  Horst  (fashion  photographer  Horst, 

did  not  attend) 
Jean  Howard  (Hollywood  social 

photograplki ) 
Emmet  John  Hughes  (writer) 
Elizabeth  Hylton  (Kay  Graham's  longtime 

assistant) 

I 

Christopher  Isherwood  (Anglo-American 
writer) 


Maharaja  and  Maharani  of  Jaipur 
Senator  and  Mrs.  Jacob  K.  Javits  (New 

York  Republican) 
Lynda  Bird  Johnson  (daughter  of 

the  president) 
Philip  Johnson  (architect) 


135 


WMMB 


A  Night  to  Remember 

erbocker"  column.  Kenneth  Jay  Lane  re- 
calls, "None  of  us  really  knew  Kay  at 
that  point.  In  the  receiving  line  we  said 
'How  do  you  do?'  to  her  instead  of 
'Daaaling,  how  are  you?'— kiss  kiss." 
Graham  herself  says,  "Though  I  obvious- 
ly appreciated  it  and  loved  the  role,  I  was 
terribly  nervous.  I  felt  like  an  ancient 
debutante!  .  .  .  Once  I  forgot  all  the  ex- 
citement outside  and  the  party  really 
started,  it  became  great  fun." 

The  party's  jubilant  atmosphere  was 
punctuated  by  the  sound  of  barmen  pop- 
ping open  450  bottles  of  Taittinger  cham- 
pagne—flowing, according  to  C.  Z.  Guest, 
"like  the  Mississippi,  or  the  Nile."  Not 
into  Frank  Sinatra's  glass,  however;  the 
crooner—who,  rounding  up  his  friends. 


had  requisitioned  two  tables  in  front  of 
the  stage— had  a  thirst  only  for  Wild 
Turkey,  says  Plaza  waiter  Joe  Evangel  ista, 
who  was  assigned  to  "take  care"  of  his 
idol  for  the  night.  Liquor  alone  didn't  ac- 
count for  the  party's  high  spirits,  howev- 
er. Peter  Duchin's  upbeat  music,  includ- 
ing show  tunes  by  several  composers  and 
lyricists  present— Alan  Jay  Lerner,  Com- 
den  and  Green,  Harold  Arlen— swept 
people  out  of  their  seats  and  onto  the 
dance  floor.  Duchin's  band  traded  off 
with  another,  funkier  group,  the  all-black 
Soul  Brothers  of  Detroit.  "My  biggest 
memory  is  of  John  Kenneth  Galbraith  be- 
ing a  hepcat,"  says  Gray  Foy.  "Here  was 
this  large  gentleman  with  all  these  intel- 
lectual credentials  bouncing  around,  danc- 
ing by  himself."  Galbraith  was  not  the 
only  egghead  to  get  into  the  groove.  Co- 
lumbia University's  eminent  literary  schol- 


ar Lionel  Trilling  thrilled  to  the  discovery 
that  it  was  possible  to  "dance  without '  ' 
having  to  lead  a  partner,"  his  widow,  Di- !  * 
ana,    recounts.    Vividly    etched    in    Lee , 
Radziwill's  memory  is  a  pas  de  deux  per- 
formed by  Lauren  Bacall  and  choreogra- 
pher Jerome  Robbins.  "Near  the  end  of 
the  evening  Jerome  Robbins  and  Lauren 
Bacall  began  to  waltz,"  she  says.  "They 
were    superb.    The    floor    cleared,    and 
everyone  stood  back  enraptured.  ...  Iti  » 
was  a  beautiful,  fleeting  moment"— one  'k 
that  was  nearly  nipped  even  shorter  by  a   » 
blunder  on  the  part  of  historian  Arthur    - 
Schlesinger  Jr.  "I  tried  to  cut  in  on  my 
old  friend  Lauren  Bacall,"  he  says.  The    ' 
actress  admonished  him,  "Don't  you  sect  } 
whom  I'm  dancing  with?" 

Bacall  also  danced  with  Capote;  only)  < 
Lee  Radziwill,  incandescent  in  a  silver! 
paillette  dress  by  Mila  Schon,  and  Kath- 


Mr.  and  Mrs.  Garvin  kanin  (director  and 

Ruth  Gordon,  actress) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Warren  Kask  (unidentified) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Nicholas  de  B.  kat/enhach 

(Kennedy-administration  member) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Alfred  Kazin  (literary  critic) 
Dr.  Benjamin  Kean  I  tropical-disease  specialist) 
Mrs.  Kenneth  Keith  (Capote's   "swan"  Slim) 
Horace  Kelland  (man-about-town) 
Senator  and  Mrs.  Edward  M.  Kenned) 

(Teddy  and  first  wife.  Joan. 

did  not  attend) 
Mrs.  John  F.  Kennedy  (Jackie,  did  not  attend) 
Mrs.  Joseph  P.  Kennedy  (Rose,  the  clan 

mother) 
Senator  and  Mrs.  Robert  F.  Kennedy 

(did  not  attend) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Walter  Kerr  (drama  critic  and 

Jean,  playwright) 
Prince  Amyn  Khan  (brother  of  the  Aga 

Khan) 
David  Kidd  (unidentified) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Donald  Klopfer  (co-founder 

of  Random  Home) 
Alfred  Knopf  (publisher) 
John  Knowles  (author) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Joseph  Kraft  (Washington 

columnist  and  Polly,  artist) 
Jack  Kroll  (Newsweek  critic) 
Harry  Kurnitz  (playwright-screenwriter) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Steven  Kyle  (businessman  and 

Betty  Comden.  lyricist) 


Melissa  Laird  (unidentified) 
Baron  Leon  Lambert  (Belgian  banker) 
Kenneth  Jay  Lane  (costume  jeweler) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Kermit  Lansner  (managing 

editor  of  Newsv  eek  I 
I^ewis  Lapham  (currently  editor  ol  Harpei  I 

Magazine) 
Marquis  Raymundo  de  I.arrain  (balletomane. 

subsequent!)  married  Margaret  Strong) 
Mrs.  Man  Lasker  (philanthropist  lor 

medical  research,  an  collector) 
Mrs.  Patricia  Lawford  (J.F.K.'s  sister) 
Valentine  Lawford  (Vogue  writer) 
Barbara  Lawrence  (editor) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Irving  l.a/ar  (agenl    known  .is 

Swifty) 
Harper  Lee  (Capote's  childhood  friend, 

who  nude  him  a  character 

in  her  novel  /»  Kill  a  Mock'mgb    i 
Vivien  Leigh  (actress) 
Mrs.  Oates  Letter  (known  now  .is 

Washington  hostess  Oatsie  Charles) 


Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jack  Lemmon  (actor,  did 

not  attend) 
Leo  Lerman  (Conde  Nasi  editor) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Alan  Jay  Lerner 

(playwright-lyricist.  Camelot,  and  fifth 

wife,  Karen,  TV  producer) 
Herman  Levin  (Broadway  producer. 

My  Fair  Lath) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Alexander  Libcrman 

(Conde  Nasi  editorial  director  and 

second  wife.  Tatiana.  hostess) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Goddard  Lieberson  (CBS 

executive  and  Vera  Zorina.  ballerina) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  V.  Lindsay  (mayor  of  , 

New   York,  did  not  attend) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Walter  Lippmann  (political 

pundit) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Joshua  Logan  (director) 
Mrs.  Nicholas  Longworth  (daughter  of 

Theodore  Roosevelt) 
Anita  Loos  (author.  Gentlemen  Prefer  Blondes) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Robert  Lowell  (poet  and 

second  wife.  Elizabeth  Hardwick,  writer) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Henry  Luce  (founder  of 

Time  Inc.  and  Clare  Boothe  Luce. 

former  congresswoman.  U.S. 

ambassador,  and  managing  editor 

of  Vanity  Fair,  did  not  attend) 
Andrew  Lyndon  (man-about-town) 

M 

Shirley  MacLaine  (actress,  did  not  attend) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Norman  Mailer  (writer  and 

fourth  wife.  Beverly) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Joseph  Mankienicz  (director. 

All  About  Eve) 
Marya  Mannes  (Journalist) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Stanley  Marcus  (president  of 

Neiman  Marcus) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  Marshall  (unidentified) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Paul  Masoner  (banker  from 

Garden  City.  Kansas) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Walter  Matthau  (actor  and 

second  wife.  Carol,  wntcr) 
Paul  Matthias  (New  York  reporter  for 

Paris  Match) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Peter  Matthiessen  (writer. 

co-founder  of  Tlie  Paris  Review) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Graham  Mattison  (Barbara 
Mutton's  attorney  and  Brazilian  wife.  Perla) 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  Russell  Maxficld  (Garden  City. 

Kansas,  doctor) 
Mhcrt  Mayslcs  (documentary  filmmaker. 

Grey  Gardens) 
David  Maysles  (documentary  filmmaker. 

Ubert's  brother) 
Ken  Mif  ormiek  (editor  at  Doubleday) 
Roddy  McDowall  (actor-photographer) 


John  McHugh  (philanthropist) 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Robert  MeNamara  (U.S. 

secretary  of  defense,  declined  for 

political  reasons) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Joseph  A.  Median  (Wall 

Street  financier  and  Kay.  Capote  loyalist) 
Marcia  Meehan  (the  Meehans'  daughter) 
Aileen  Mehle  (known  as  Suzy  Knickerbocker. 

the  gossip  columnist) 
Frederick  Melhado  (New  York  socialite) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Paul  Mellon  (Pennsylvania 

banking  heir  and  philanthropist 

and  Bunny,  intimate  friend  of 

Jackie  Kennedy's) 
Gian  Carlo  Menotti  (opera  composer,  did 

not  attend) 
David  Merrick  (Broadway  producer) 
Robert  Merrill  (operatic  baritone) 
David  Metcalfe  (unidentified) 
Mrs.  Agnes  E.  Meyer  (the  guest  of 

honor's  mother) 
Andre  Meyer  (financier  who  later  managed 

Jackie  Onassis's  fortune) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  James  Michener  (novelist) 
Caterine  Milinaire  (daughter  of  the  Duchess 

of  Bedford) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Arthur  Miller  (playwright 

and  third  wife,  Inge  Morath, 

photographer) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gilbert  Miller  (theatrical 

producer  and  Kitty,  socialite) 
Mrs.  Walter  Millis  (Eugenia  Sheppard, 

New  York  columnist) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Vinccnte  Minnelli 

(Hollywood  director  and  Denise. 

currently  Denise  Hale) 
John  Moore  (unidentified) 
Marianne  Moore  ( Brooklyn  poet) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thomas  Moore  (unidentified) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  S.  Moorhead 

(Pennsylvania  congressman) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Walther  Moreira  Salles 

(former  Brazilian  ambassador  and  Eliza, 

international  socialite) 
Edward  P.  Morgan  (news  commentator) 
Stanley  Mortimer  (Babe  Paley's  first 

husband) 
Ann  Mudge  (lawyer) 
Mrs.  Natalia  Murray  (longtime 

companion  of  writer  Janet  Banner) 

N 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Samuel  I.  Newhouse  Sr. 

(owner  of  Conde  Nast  Publications) 
Mrs.  Stavros  Niarchos  (Charlotte  Ford) 
Mike  Nichols  (director) 
Eric  Nielsen  (international  socialite) 
Norman  Norell  (American  couturier) 


Serge  Obolensky  (PR.  executive,  prominent 
White  Russian  emigre) 

Lord  and  Lady  David  Ogilvy  (British 
corporate  executive  and  Virginia 
Fortune  Ryan,  currently  Countess  of 
Airlie.  Lady  of  the  Bedchamber  to 
Queen  Elizabeth  II) 

John  O'Hara  (novelist.  Bulterfield  8) 

Patrick  O'Higgins  (Helena  Rubinstein's 
boy  Friday  and  biographer) 


Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bruno  Pagliai  (Italian 

industrialist  and  Merle  Oberon.  actress) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  S.  Paley  (CBS 

chairman  and  the  one  and  only  Babe, 

Capote's  best  friends  until  he  published 

a  chapter  of  Answered  Prayers) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gordon  Parks 

( poet-photographer) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Iva  S.  V.  Patcevitch  (president  i 

of  Conde  Nast  Publications) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Samuel  Peabody  (New 

York  socialite  and  Judy,  fund-raiser) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Drew  Pearson  (journalist) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gregory  Peck  (actor 

and  Veronique.  Los  Angeles  socialite) 
William  Pennington  (decorator) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Frank  Perry  (film  director 

and  first  wife,  Eleanor,  writer, 

David  and  Lisa) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Michael  Phipps  (socialite  and 

polo  player  and  Muriel,  mother-in-law 

of  Thomas  Schippers) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ogden  Phipps  (head  of 

Phipps  family,  racehorse  breeder) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thomas  W.  Phipps 

(playwright,  nephew  of  Nancy  Astor) 
Princess  Luciana  Pignatelli  (Italian  aristocrat. 

Rudy  Crespi's  half-sister) 
Duarte  Pinto-Coelho  (Portuguese  decorator) 
George  Plimpton  (writer,  co-founder 

of  Tlte  Paris  Review;  now  at  work 

on  an  oral  history  of  Truman  Capote) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Norman  Podhoretz  (editor 

of  Commentary  and  Midge 

Decter.  writer) 
Katherine  Anne  Porter  (writer  whom 

Capote  fictionalized  harshly  in 

Answered  Prayers,  did  not  attend) 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  Joel  Pressman  (LA.  doctor 

and  actress  Claudette  Colbert) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Harold  Prince  (Broadway 

producer-director) 
Alan  Pryce-Jones  (critic  for  New  York 

Herald-Tribune) 


136 


VANITY  FAIR  /JULY  1996 
■  I 


krine  Graham,  sheathed  in  a  monkish 
ivhite  wool  jersey  Balmain  trimmed  in  jet 
Deads,  shared  this  rare  privilege.  Ironical- 
ly, says  Radziwill,  "dancing  was  not  Tru- 
Inan's  forte."  Like  a  sorcerer  satisfied 
Ivith  the  knowledge  that  he  has  success- 
fully cast  his  spell,  Capote  was  content 
jo  stand  back  and  watch  the  magic  take 
!iold.  And,  most  guests  agree,  the  real 
f;harm  of  the  evening  lay  in  people- 
patching.  Aileen  Mehle  says,  "Every- 
body, no  matter  how  rich  or  sophisticat- 
ed, was  rubbernecking."  Gray  Foy  elabo- 
rates: "It  was  almost  more  like  a  pageant 
i:han  a  party,  very  self-conscious  and,  in 
[spite  of  the  music,  stately— a  congress  of 
peacocks."  From  the  galaxy  of  beauties, 
'Diana  Trilling  singles  out  Amanda  Bur- 
pen,  who  had  rented  one  of  Cecil  Bea- 
jton's  original  Ascot  costumes  from  My 
\Fair  Lady  for  the  evening.  But,  for  most 


observers,  the  girl  who  really  stole  the 
show  was  16-year-old  Penelope  Tree. 
Draped  in  a  black  sleeveless,  floor-length 
tunic  slit  up  to  her  ribs  and  clinging  to 
those  few  surfaces  it  covered,  she  was  the 
wood  nymph  in  the  enchanted  forest. 
Her  stemlike  legs  were  enveloped  in 
sheer  black  tights  topped  by  hip-hugger 
bikini  briefs— an  outfit  purchased  at  the 
ultra-mod  boutique  Paraphernalia.  Her 
hair  hung  loose  and  straight,  and  her 
bangs  nearly  covered  her  eyes,  which 
were  revealed  (once  she  removed  her 
black  batwoman  mask)  to  be  painted  like 
Pierrot's.  "It  was  a  total  revelation  among 
that  very  dressed-up  crowd,"  says  Isabel 
Eberstadt.  "It  absolutely  gave  one  a  fris- 
son—one had  the  impression  of  Cinderel- 
la in  her  rags  and  tatters  looking  so  beau- 
tiful and  waiflike  you  couldn't  believe  it. 
It  was  really  Penelope's  coming-out.  It 


launched  her  career."  The  ever  watchful 
eyes  of  photographer  Richard  Avedon 
and  Diana  Vreeland,  then  American 
Vogue's  editor  in  chief,  alighted  with 
equal  alacrity  on  this  remarkable  sight. 
Not  long  after,  to  the  consternation  of 
Ronald  and  Marietta  Tree,  Vreeland  ran 
a  huge  Avedon  portfolio  of  their  daugh- 
ter in  Vogue— officially  inaugurating  the 
flower-child  look  of  the  late  60s.  Isabel 
Eberstadt  remarks,  "The  ball  was  a  car- 
ryover from  the  50s— the  last  time  when 
people  felt  no  guilt  about  expenditures, 
and  were  not  bothered  by  any  serious  so- 
cial questions.  .  .  .  Penelope  Tree  was  the 
forerunner  of  what  was  to  come." 

The  Vietnam  War,  about  to  become 
the  gravest  political  crisis,  weighed  heavi- 
ly on  the  mind  of  at  least  one  guest.  Pun- 
dit and  literary  critic  Norman  Podhoretz 
remembers  sitting  at  a  table  with  policy- 


Prince  and  Princess  Stanislas  Radziwill 

(Polish  nobleman  and  Lee,  sister  of 

Jackie  Kennedy,  one  of  Capote's  "swans") 
Count  Vega  del  Ren  (unidentified) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  .lames  Reston  (New  York 

Times  Washington  correspondent) 
Vicomtesse  Jacqueline  de  Ribes  (French 

socialite) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Larry  Rivers  (artist,  did 

not  attend) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jason  Robards  Jr.  (actor  and 

Lauren  Bacall,  actress) 
Jerome  Robbins  (choreographer.  West  Side 

Story) 
Governor  and  Mrs.  Nelson  A.  Rockefeller 

(New  York  governor  and  second  wife, 

Happy,  did  not  attend) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Richard  Rodgers  (Broadway 

composer) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  P.  Rogers  (U.S. 

attorney  general  under  President 

Eisenhower,  later  secretary  of  state 

under  President  Nixon) 
Philip  Roth  (novelist) 
Baroness  Cecile  de  Rothschild  (Greta 

Garbo's  closest  friend) 
Baron  and  Baroness  Guy  de  Rothschild 

(head  of  French  branch  of 

family  banking  business  and  second 

wife.  Marie-Helene,  famous  party  giver) 
Theodore  Rousseau  (Metropolitan  Museum 

curator) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  Barry  Ryan  3d 

(businessman  and  D.D.,  former  Harper's 

Bazaar  fashion  editor) 
Mrs.  John  Barry  Ryan  Jr.  (daughter  of 

banker  Otto  Kahn) 


Arnold  Saint-Subber  (Broadway  producer  of 

Capote's  House  of  Flowers) 
Herbert  Sargent  (TV  writer  and  producer) 
John  Sargent  (president  of  Doubleday) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Robert  Samoff  (president  of  RCA) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Frank  Schiff  (Gloria.  Vogue  editor) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thomas  Schippers  (conductor 

and  Nonie  Phipps,  socialite) 
Mrs.  George  Schlee  (couturiere  Valentina) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Arthur  Schlesinger  Jr. 

(Harvard  historian) 
Jean  Schlumberger  (Tiffany  jeweler) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Mark  Schorer  (writer) 
Mrs.  Zachary  Scott  (actress  Ruth  Ford) 
Peggy  Scott-Duff  (English  socialite,  now 

Mrs.  Hans  Kertess) 
Nelson  Seabra  (Brazilian  socialite) 


Daniel  Selznick  (son  ot  producer  David) 
Mrs.  David  O.  Selznick  (actress 

Jennifer  Jones,  the  producer's  widow) 
Mrs.  Irene  Selznick  (daughter  of  producer 

Louis  B.  Mayer,  first  wife  of 

producer  David) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Irwin  Shaw  (novelist) 
Mrs.  Robert  E.  Sherwood  (widow  of 

playwright-historian) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Sargent  Shriver  (director 

of  Peace  Corps  and  Eunice,  sister  of 

J.F.K.) 
Robert  Silvers  (editor  of  Vie  New  York 

Review  of  Books) 
Agnes  Sims  (artist) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Frank  Sinatra 

(singer  and  third  wife,  Mia  Farrow, 

actress) 
Richard  Sirce  (unidentified) 
Earl  E.  T.  Smith  (future  mayor  of 

Palm  Beach,  former  U.S.  ambassador 

to  Cuba) 
Oliver  Smith  (theatrical  designer) 
Preston  Smith  (unidentified) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Stephen  Smith 

(Kennedy-family  financial  adviser  and 

Jean,  sister  of  J.F.K.) 
David  Somerset  (British  aristocrat,  now 

Duke  of  Beaufort) 
Stephen  Sondheim  (composer-lyricist) 
Theodore  Sorensen  (J.F.K.  speechwriter) 
Charles  F.  Spalding  (vice  president  of 

Lazard  Freres) 
Sam  Spiegel  (Hollywood  producer) 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  Jules  Stein  (founder  of  MCA) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Robert  Stein  (editor  in  chief 

of  McCall's  magazine) 
Susan  Stein  (daughter  of  Jules  Stein,  later 

Mrs.  Gil  Shiva) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  Steinbeck  (Nobel 

Prize-winning  author) 
Gloria  Steinem  (feminist  journalist) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  George  C.  Stevens  Jr.  (son  of 

movie  director) 
Marti  Stevens  (singer) 
Mrs.  William  Rhinelander  Stewart  (dowager 

socialite,  said  to  be  the  most  beautiful 

woman  of  her  day! 
Monica  Stirling  (unidentified) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  Styron  (Bill  and 

Rose,  literary  couple) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Arthur  Ochs  Sulzberger 

(publisher  of  Vie  New  York  Times) 


Harold  E.  Talbott  (unidentified) 
Mrs.  Roland  Tate  (widow  of  judge  who 
presided  over  Clutter  case) 


Mr.  and  Mrs.  Walter  Thayer  (unidentified) 
Ambassador  and  Mrs.  Llewellyn  E. 

Thompson  Jr.  (U.S.  ambassador  to 

the  Soviet  Union) 
Virgil  Thomson  (composer) 
Alfredo  Todisco  (unidentified) 
Alvin  Topping  (unidentified) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Warren  Topping  (Hamptons 

socialites) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Michael  Tree  (older  son  of 

decorator  Nancy  Lancaster  and 

Ronald  Tree) 
Penelope  Tree  (young  daughter  of 

Ronald  and  Marietta  Tree) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ronald  Tree 

(investment  banker  and  second  wife, 

the  former  Marietta  Peabody, 

U.S.  representative  to  the  U.N.) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lionel  Trilling 

(Columbia  University  literary  critic 

and  writer  Diana) 
Van  Day  Truex  (head  of  Parsons 

School  of  Design) 

u 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Giancarlo  Uzielli  (Italian 
businessman  and  Anne  Ford, 
daughter  of  Henry  Ford  II) 


Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jack  Valenti  (currently  head 

of  Motion  Picture  Association  of  America) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  vanden  Heuvel 

(Kennedy  insider  and  Jean,  daughter  of 

Jules  Stein) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Alfred  Gwynne  Vanderbilt 

(owner  of  racehorses  and  third 

wife,  Jean  Harvey) 
Mrs.  Murray  Vanderbilt  (Jeanne, 

second  wife  of  Alfred,  did  not  attend) 
Wendy  Vanderbilt  (sculptor,  daughter 

from  Alfred's  first  marriage. 

to  Molly  Hudson) 
Baron  and  Baroness  van  Zuylen  (unidentified) 
Duke  Fulco  di  Verdura  (Sicilian  aristocrat 

and  famous  jeweler) 
Mrs.  Doris  Vidor  (widow  of  director 

Charles  Vidor) 
Marques  and  Marquesa  de  Villaverde 

(Spanish  aristocrats;  Carmen  was 

the  daughter  of  Generalissimo  Franco) 
Mrs.  T.  Reed  Vreeland  (Diana,  the  empress 

of  style) 

w 

Gillian  Walker  (future  wife  of  filmmaker 
Albert  Maysles) 


Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  Walker  III  (director  of 

National  Gallery  in  Washington.  D.C, 

and  Lady  Margaret  Drummond) 
William  Walton  (painter,  Kennedy 

confidant) 
Walter  Wanger  (movie  producer,  former 

husband  of  actress  Joan  Bennett) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Edward  Warburg 

(unidentified) 
Andy  Warhol  (Pop  artist) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Robert  Penn  Warren  (poet- 
novelist  and  Eleanor  Clark,  writer) 
Whitney  Warren  (San  Francisco  socialite) 
David  Webb  (jeweler) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Robert  Wells  (manager  of 

radio  station  in  Garden  City.  Kansas) 
Glenway  Wescott  (novelist) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Anthony  West  (writer) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Yann  Weymouth 

(architect  and  Lally.  daughter  of 

Kay  Graham) 
Monroe  Wheeler  (MoMA  official,  art  critic) 
Robert  Whitehead  (theatrical  producer) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  Hay  Whitney 

(Long  Island  socialites  Jock  and  Betsey. 

sister  of  Babe  Paley) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Billy  Wilder  (film  director) 
Thornton  Wilder  (playwright,  did  not  attend) 
Edward  Bennett  Williams  (Washington 

lawyer  and  fixer) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Odd  Williams  (Garden  City. 

Kansas,  farmers) 
Tennessee  Williams  (playwright,  did  not 

attend) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Edmund  Wilson  (literary 

Pooh-Bah) 
Jean  Sprain  Wilson  (unidentified) 
Donald  Windham  (writer) 
Duke  and  Duchess  of  Windsor  (the  abdicator 

and  Wallis.  did  nol  attend) 
Frederick  M.  Winship  (editor  al  U.P.I.) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Norman  K.  Winston 

(real-estate  developer  and  Rosita. 

prominent  New  York  hostess) 
Mrs.  Frank  Wisner  (widow  of  former 

deputy  director  of  the  C.I. A.) 
Mrs.  William  Woodward  (Long  Island 

socialite,  model  for  Dominick  Dunne's 

elder  Mrs.  Grenville) 
Alfred  Wright  Jr.  (fourth  husband  of 

actress  Joan  Fontaine) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Charles  Wrightsman  (oil 

magnate  and  Jayne.  major  donors  to 

Metropolitan  Museum) 


Darryl  Zanuck  (producer,  president  ol 
Twentieth  Century  Fox) 


VANITY  FAIR  /JULY  1996 


137 


"■™— ■""—' 


A  Night  to  Remember 

maker  McGeorge  Bundy  and  writer  Lil- 
lian Hellman  when  Norman  Mailer  came 
over  to  Bundy  and  fired  off  some  salvos 
about  the  war.  "Lillian  tried  to  calm  him 
down."  Podhoretz  says,  "but  Mailer  got 
belligerent.  He  invited  Bundy  outside  for 
a  fistfight."  Not  deigning  to  respond  to 
the  challenge,  Bundy,  according  to  Pod- 
horetz, "looked  down  at  Norman  with 
lofty  disdain.  And  Mailer  retorted,  i  paid 
you  too  much  respect.'  Everybody  was 
very  embarrassed." 

By  the  time  waiters  had  spread  out  a 
midnight  buffet  of  chicken  hash  with 
sherry,  spaghetti  Bolognese,  pastries,  and 
coffee  in  the  ballroom's  foyer, 
a  few  guests  had  grown  rest- 
less from  so  many  hours  of 
heady  confinement.  Jill  Fox 
(wife  of  Capote's  editor)  and 
George  Plimpton,  spotting 
John  Kenneth  Galbraith  walk- 
ing around  with  a  candelabra 
"as  if  he  were  in  some  kind  of 
a  stately  procession,"  Fox  says, 
grabbed  the  economist's  top 
hat  off  a  table  and  began  to 
play  football  with  it.  Further 
improvising.  Fox  and  Plimpton 
incorporated  not  just  the  hat 
but  Galbraith  and  his  cande- 
labra into  the  rules  of  their 
spontaneous  game.  "It  some- 
how also  involved  George 
pushing  me  around  in  a  chair,'' 
"I  was  wearing  a  white  silk 
dress  that  made  me  look  as  if  I  had  a 
smashing  bosom,  and  a  white  boa  of  os- 
trich feathers  that  kept  blowing  up  my 
nose.  But  I  was  running  around,  that 
room  as  if  I  were  in  blue  jeans.  The  party 
had  a  rather  formal,  strange  feeling, 
which  had  a  lot  to  do  with  the  masks. 
When  it  came  time  to  toss  the  top  hat 
around,  it  was  a  welcome  relief." 

Duchin's  orchestra  played  on  until  3:30 
in  the  morning,  and  even  then  the  Kansas 
contingent  had  not  yet  ingested  its  fill  of 
fun.  Dr.  Russell  Maxfield  recalled  that 
they  were  "the  last  to  leave.  When  we 
went  back  to  our  rooms  in  the  Plaza,  Tru- 
man joined  us.  He  was  so  excited.  He 
wanted  to  talk  to  us  all  night." 

The  furor  stirred  up  by  the  press  be- 
fore the  Black  and  White  Ball  was 
but  a  summer  downpour  compared  with 
the  media  maelstrom  unleashed  the  next 
day.  "Truman  once  told  me,  'I'm  a  better 
publicist  than  a  writd    "  says  Kay  Mee- 

138 


han.  "He  said  that  to  make  a  best-seller 
you  or  your  publisher  had  to  spend  a  lot 
of  money,  saturating  the  media  all  at 
once.  Well,  the  Black  and  White  Ball  sat- 
urated the  media."  Late  the  evening  be- 
fore, CBS  had  aired  live  coverage  of  the 
party.  Stories  were  dispatched  on  wire 
services  to  places  most  of  Capote's  540 
would  never  see:  Champaign -Urbana,  Illi- 
nois; Harrisburg,  Pennsylvania;  Fort 
Worth,  Texas;  Deer  Park,  New  York. 
Aileen  Mehle's  paper,  the  New  York 
World  Journal  Tribune,  ran  front-page  cov- 
erage; so  did  the  New  York  Post.  Women 's 
Wear  Daily  rated  the  guests  with  a  system 
of  stars.  The  trade  paper  bestowed  on 
style  queens  Gloria  Guinness  and  Marel- 
la  Agnelli  the  top  accolade  of  four  and  a 
half  stars,  Diana  Vreeland  earned  a  miser- 


"The  only  other 

time  guest  lists  were 

ever  published 

was  for  state  dinners  at 

the  White  House." 


Fox  says, 
sleeveless 


ly  single  star,  and  Norman  Mailer  was 
consigned  to  fashion  hell  with  a  score  of 
minus  five. 

But  what  most  captivated  ball  followers 
was  Tlie  New  York  Times's  implied  endorse- 
ment of  Capote's  own  method  of  score- 
keeping.  To  supplement  articles  by  Char- 
lotte Curtis  and  Enid  Nemy,  the  newspaper 
printed  the  master  list  of  invited  guests— 
an  optimistic  list  well  in  excess  of  540. 
Some  of  those  named  had  not  in  fact 
gone  to  the  party— Edward  Kennedy, 
Jacqueline  Kennedy,  Mayor  John  Lind- 
say, and  Nelson  Rockefeller  had  sent  re- 
grets because  they  either  were  out  of  town 
or  had  conflicting  engagements.  Secretary 
of  Defense  Robert  McNamara  had  de- 
clined, deeming  it,  in  William  F  Buckley 
Jr.'s  words,  "inappropriate  to  frug-with- 
Kay  at  Truman's  blast"  while  the  Vietnam 
War  fermented.  (Pete  Hamill,  seething 
with  moral  outrage,  wrote  a  column  in 
the  New  York  Post  in  which  he  inter- 
spersed snippets  of  imagined  fatuous  ball 
chitchat  with  reports  of  war  horrors.) 
Writer  Katherine  Anne  Porter— who  had 


once  called  Capote  "the  pimple  on  the  i 
face  of  American  literature"  and  whom  It 
Capote  would  later  pillory  in  Answered  I- 
Prayers  as  the  sex-starved  octogenarian  i 
Alice  Lee  Langman— had  badly  wanted  to  t 
go,  but  was  ill  and  bedridden. 

But  Times  readers  who  quibbled  about  t 
the  discrepancy  between  those  listed  and  ? 
those  in  attendance  missed  the  whole  ma-  i 
licious  point:  the  fakers  who  had  fled  * 
to  the  Bahamas  or  claimed  they  had  it' 
"frugged-with-Kay"  were  exposed,  rout-  -k 
ed,  and  humiliated.  Capote  insisted  that  " 
Charlotte  Curtis  had  snatched  the  list  off  ff: 
the  party's  registration  desk,  but  Enid  It" 
Nemy  avers,  "Truman  provided  the  list 
He  was  really  cooperative." 

Norman  Podhoretz  recalls,  "The  only  3 
other  time  guest  lists  were  ever  published  Ip 
was  for  state  dinners  at  the  M 
White   House.   But  then,  the  fc 
only  other  time  I  remember  if 
being  at  a  party  where  every  >f 
single  person  was  delighted  to  |i 
be  there  was  at  a  White  House  .'In- 
state dinner."  As  many  of  the  I 
540    soon    learned,    "having 
your  name  on  the  list  became  :jj 
a  mark  of  tremendous  status »{ 
for  a  few  months,"  Podhoretz  -t 
continues.  "It  provoked  enor- 
mous    hostility,     admiration, ,  )M 
and    curiosity.    Afterwards    IB  till i 
went  to  Yaddo  [the  writers'  re- 
treat in   upstate  New  York],  „t  k 
and  all  anyone  wanted  to  talk 
to  me  about  was  the  party." 
Katharine  Graham  calls  the?* 
party  "astounding— a  very  big  event  in  my  y  1. 
life,  very  important  to  me.  I  had  just 
gone  to  work  in  '63,  and  was  not  well  II to) 
known.  Though  I  had  never  met  most  of  Rib: 
those  people  before,  many  have  stayed  inmceri 
my  life  since."  As  for  Capote,  he  was 
nearly  buried  alive  by  the  windfall  off  to 
flowers  and  champagne  that  blew  into  his  sunk 
apartment  over  the  next  several  days. 

In  a  stroke  worthy  of  Napoleon,  thatllke'df 
other  bantam.  Capote  had  not  only  con- -IP 
quered  the  worlds  of  his  choice  but  also  i 
crowned  himself,  in  a  self-generated  and  i 
self-glorifying  ceremony,  emperor.  Worn-  ■ 
en's  Wear  Daily  declared  him  "omnipo--1 
tent,"  and  through  the  agency  of  decora-  -iff 
tor  Billy  Baldwin  (whose  unicorn  mask, 
designed  by  Tiffany  display  artist  Gene 
Moore,  had  eclipsed  all  the  other  men's 
efforts),  the  Museum  of  the  City  of  New> 
York  established  an  archive  of  memora- 
bilia—invitations, costumes,  masks— from 
what  the  press  now  labeled  "the  Party  of1 
the  Century."  George  Washington's  inau- 
gural ball  was  one  of  the  few  other  par- 
ties to  be  so  consecrated. 


VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


on: 


Hill; 

ft 


feci 

air 


'k. 


»1S" 


Ife 


"It  was  the  Last  Great  American  Par- 
;"  D.  D.  Ryan  declares  elegiacally.  "The 
ast  Gasp!  I  hate  the  sound  of  that— it's 
>  final."  The  Black  and  White  Ball,  in 
ict,  did  sound  the  death  knell  of  an  elite 
llture  founded  on  privacy,  exclusivity, 
ad  breeding,  and  heralded  the  emer- 
;nce  of  another,  more  raucous  one,  de- 
nted to  publicity,  celebrity,  and  big  mon- 
I  It  was  the  last  hurrah  of  the  glam- 
rous  go-go  phase  of  the  60s,  the  opti- 
listic  era  of  Camelot,  space  launches, 
the  Great  Society,"  horizonless  prosperi- 
I  and  a  certain  sophisticated,  irretriev- 
ble  naivete.  Capote's  artistic  and  social 
otency  peaked  at  the  same  moment  as 
.merica's  supremacy  as  a  world  power. 
i  1966— before  Vietnam  escalated  disas- 
ously,  before  R.F.K.'s  and  Martin  Lu- 
ler  King  Jr.'s  assassinations,  before  disil- 
isionment  took  hold— Capote  and  the 
buntry  both  felt  invincible.  All  the  rules 
f  society  were  about  to  flip  around,  re- 
erse,  and  go  topsy-turvy:  positive  was 
bout  to  become  negative,  and  black  be- 
ome  white. 

f,  for  a  time,  Capote  seemed  to  be  the 
.axis  on  which  the  planet  spun,  he  was 
■om  the  start  a  somewhat  off -kilter  piv- 
t.  Slowly  at  first,  and  then  more  rapid- 
|  he  wobbled  out  of  control,  weakening 
nth  each  unsteady  rotation  his  once  ir- 
esistible  gravitational  pull.  Some  of  his 
lore  perceptive  friends  had  already 
niffed  out  trouble  in  paradise.  Cecil 
teaton  in  1966  confided  to  his  journal  a 
omewhat  wishful  insight:  "I  secretly  feel 
'.  is  in  a  bad  state  and  may  not  last  long. 
le  has  become  a  real  neurotic  case." 
Lay  Meehan,  who,  unlike  Beaton,  never 
bandoned  Capote,  recalls  experiencing 

certain  poignant  sensation  occasioned 
E  the  Black  and  White  Ball.  "When  I 
liought  of  all  the  power  he  commanded 
t  the  ball,  I  couldn't  help  but  remember 
is  terrible,  lonely  childhood  and  how 
ie'd  been  abandoned  by  his  parents.  The 
tarty  represented  for  him  some  kind  of 
onging.  Some  sensitivity  in  me  made  me 
t  that  point  question  his  stability." 

The  causes  of  Capote's  decline  during 
he  70s  and  early  80s  are  many  and  corn- 
ilex.  He  never  quite  recovered  from  the 
hock,  in  1965,  of  witnessing  Perry  Smith 
ind  Dick  Hickock's  double  execution  by 
ianging.  (This  harrowing  experience,  ex- 
icerbated  by  the  gnawing  thought  that 
le  might  somehow  have  saved  them, 
urned  him  into  a  crusader  against  capi 
;al  punishment.)  Another  major  problem. 
Robert  Silvers  points  out,  was  that  he 
vas  "a  man  divided  in  his  missions.  A  se- 
rious author,  he  was  taken  seriously,  but 

/ANITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


he  was  also  a  great  social  figure.  .  .  .  Ulti- 
mately it  was  a  question  of  what  to  sacri- 
fice." Unlike  his  "secret  friend"  Proust 
(Capote  sought  to  emulate  the  French- 
man in  his  projected  magnum  opus,  An- 
swered Prayers,  a  nonfiction  novel  biting 
many  of  the  cafe-society  hands  that  had 
fed  him),  who  spent  the  first  period  of 
his  adult  life  immersed  in  the  haut 
monde  before  retiring  to  the  cork-lined 
isolation  of  his  bedchamber  to  write. 
Capote  ambitiously  tried  to  do  it  all  at 
once.  Yet  his  last  years  don't  necessarily 
unfold  like  a  cautionary  tale  against  mix- 
ing artistic  and  worldly  aims.  Capote 
managed  to  publish  five  books  after  //; 
Cold  Blood— a\\  of  them,  however,  short 
works  or  story  collections.  Misguidedly, 
though,  he  had  pinned  his  writerly  ambi- 
tions on  the  ill-starred  Answered  Prayers. 
Before  the  scandalous  excerpts  were  pub- 
lished in  Esquire— a  devastating  event  that 
made  him  a  pariah  among  the  very  peo- 
ple who  had  fawned  over  him  10  years 
earlier  at  the  Black  and  White  Ball— he 
admitted,  "I  basically  don't  really  want 
to  finish  it.  .  .  .  It's  like  suddenly  taking 
some  beautiful  animal,  say,  or  .  .  .  some 
lovely  child  ...  in  the  yard  and  [shoot- 
ing] it  in  the  head." 

Capote  never  understood  why  his 
"swans"  Babe,  Slim,  et  al.  felt  so  betrayed 
by  his  writer's  exercise  of  airing  their 
dirty  laundry— the  "laundress,"  after  all, 
was  an  artist— and  his  lack  of  comprehen- 
sion only  aggravated  his  suffering.  It  was 
as  if,  in  a  self-destructive  case  of  repeti- 
tion compulsion,  Capote  felt  constrained 
to  recapitulate  his  recurrent  childhood 
trauma  of  being  seduced  and  then  reject- 
ed by  a  larger-than-life,  adorably  glam- 
orous mother  figure. 

Capote's  central  psychic  drama  of  at- 
traction and  abandonment  followed  pre- 
cipitously by  rage  and  despair  was  also 
replayed  ad  nauseam  in  a  series  of  dam- 
aging, disturbed  relationships  with  inap- 
propriate men  (usually  straight,  in  one 
case  an  air-conditioning  repairman),  at 
first  prompted  by  the  dissolution  of  the 
writer's  long-standing  relationship  with 
Jack  Dunphy.  These  sexual  obsessions 
were  so  consuming  that  they  pre-empted 
writing  and  most  other  activities,  except 
boozing  and  pill  popping. 

And,  of  course,  the  example  of  his  al- 
coholic mother— who,  like  Capote,  had 
ended  up  dying  from  complications  relat- 
ed to  an  overdose— made  him  acutely  sus- 
ceptible to  the  siren  song  of  substance 
abuse.  The  cosseted,  blond-banged  prodi- 
gy with  the  signature  castrato  drawl  had 
by  his  laic  50s  degenerated  into  a  figure 
of  fun,  an  embarrassing  bad  joke.  And 


his  worst  humiliations,  like  his  greatest 
triumphs,  took  place  in  public.  At  a  party 
for  Liza  Minnelli  in  1983  (the  year  before 
his  death).  New  York  gossip  columnist 
Liz  Smith,  noticing  how  assiduously  other 
guests  were  ignoring  him,  organized  half- 
hour  shifts  of  people  who— strictly  out  of 
charity— agreed  to  speak  to  America's 
most  celebrated  living  novelist. 

One  late-life  friend,  tourism  consultant 
Joe  Petrocik,  who  lived  near  Capote 
in  the  country,  remembers  how  he  would 
often— over  long,  liquor-soaked  dinners- 
reminisce  about  the  Black  and  White 
Ball.  "He  was  proud  of  it  till  the  day  he 
died,  never  regretted  giving  it.  He  was  so 
pleased  with  the  way  it  had  opened  a 
new  kind  of  career  for  Kay  Graham." 
The  ball,  in  fact,  loomed  so  large  in  his 
imagination  that  when  he  spoke  of  its 
cost— actually,  a  rather  modest  $16,000 — 
the  sum  grew  and  grew,  as  in  a  fisher- 
man's tale  of  his  catch,  first  to  $75,000, 
then  to  $155,000.  "He  liked  the  fact  that 
he  had  paid  for  it  with  his  own  money, 
that  he  didn't  have  some  corporation 
sponsor  it,"  Petrocik  says.  A  favorite  pas- 
time of  Capote's  was  poring  over  his 
Black  and  White  Ball  scrapbooks.  "There 
were  albums  and  albums  and  albums," 
Petrocik  says.  "Large  black  ones  with 
black  pages.  There  were  clippings  and 
photos— 300  to  400  pictures— glued  in 
or  mounted  with  corners.  Truman,  you 
know,  was  a  big  gamester.  One  game 
he'd  play  was  to  look  at  a  woman's  pic- 
ture in  the  album  and  name  how  many 
husbands  she'd  had  since  the  ball,  and 
then  name  how  many  wives  her  spouse 
at  the  time  had  had  since  the  ball.  And 
he'd  figure  out  the  various  marriages  that 
took  place  among  ball  guests  who  didn't 
even  know  each  other  at  the  time." 
Toward  the  end  of  his  life  Capote 
spoke  about  giving  another  ball.  "I  have 
right  here  in  his  own  writing  an  invita- 
tion he  drafted,"  Petrocik  says.  "'Don 
Senor  Truman  Capote  requests  your  com- 
pany for  a  masked  ball— in  Asuncion, 
Paraguay.'  He  liked  the  idea  of  people 
having  to  travel  a  very  long  way  for  his 
party.  I'm  sure  as  hell  Truman  would 
have  repeated  the  ball  if  he  could.  It  was 
his  social  chef  d'oeuvre." 

Once,  over  afternoon  drinks  in  the 
Plaza's  Oak  Room,  Capote  told  Andy 
Warhol  that  he  considered  anything  into 
which  he  poured  great  effort— a  novel,  a 
traffic  ticket,  or  a  ball— an  artistic  act. 
Refining  this  point  on  another  occasion, 
he  explained,  "For  some  people,  religion 
is  the  consolation  for  being  human.  For 
me,  it's  art."  □ 

139 


BassaouBtmoBaaa 


-n"~™— 


Architects 


(Continual  from  page  92)  created  a 
grand,  idealized  Manhattan  vista.  "These 
costumes  were  some  of  the  most  striking 
at  the  ball,"  the  Times  reported,  "'and 
collectively  in  this  episode  they  formed 
an  impressive  display." 

Look  closely,  however,  at  the  faces 
of  these  gods  of  the  sky- 
line, partially  obscured  by 
their  stepped-back  bon- 
nets, and  you  will  find 
little  gaiety  in  their  eyes. 
"There  is  a  sort  of  sad, 
tragic  quality  there,"  says 
architect  and  historian 
Robert  A.  M.  Stern.  "The 
era  of  the  skyscraper  was 
over.  The  Empire  State 
Building  was  under  con- 
struction, but  I  think 
every  other  skyscraper  was 
finished  and  the  likeli- 
hood of  another  being 
built  was  quite  in  the  dis- 
tance." The  Great  Depres- 
sion was  under  way,  and 
it  was  suddenly  a  bad 
time  to  be  in  the  skyline 
business. 

Following  a  decade  of 
economic  catastrophe  and 
four  years  of  world  war, 
the  renown  of  that  earlier 
generation  of  architects, 
the  big  T  squares  of  their 
day,  slipped  away.  Stern 
notes  that  Ralph  Walker, 
he  of  the  costume  la- 
beled One  Wall  Street, 
was  awarded  the  Centen- 
nial Medal  of  Honor  in 
1957  by  the  American  In- 
stitute of  Architects  in  cel- 
ebration of  its  100th  year. 
He  then  faded  into  ob- 
scurity. And  William  Van 
Alen,  the  beau  of  the  ball 
in   '319  "I  have  no  idea 


One  rarely  thinks  "Chrysler  Building" 
and  "William  Van  Alen"  concurrently— 
unless  one  happens  to  be  looking  at 
that  faded  photo  of  Van  Alen  wear- 
ing the  Chrysler  Building.  But  when 
one  gazes  upon  the  Louvre  pyramid, 
a  mental  image  of  the  genteel,  perfect- 
ly tailored  I.  M.  Pei  is  usually  hover- 
ing—even if  he  doesn't  happen  to  be 
staring  out  at  you  with  a  model  of  it 


what  happened,"  says 
Stern  rather  ominously.  "I 
have  always  wondered." 


Arquitectonica 

Bernardo  Fort-Brescia  and  Laurinda  Spear, 
principals,  Miami,  Florida. 


The  many  forgotten  ar- 
chitecture stars  of  the 
first  part  of  the  century  could  never 
have  imagined  the  level  of  fame  that 
their  successors  would  achieve.  Popular 
architects  today  are  dramati'-  perso- 
nae  in  the  mega-media  culture  of  our 
lives.  Their  images  are  virtually  bonded 
to  the  facade-  they  build. 

140 


Perhaps  the  most  successful  architects  of  their  generation,  Fort- 
Brescia  and  Spear  were  among  the  first  to  look  back  to  the  commercial 
modernism  of  the  1950s— especially  the  work  of  Morris  Lapidus— 
and  adapt  it  for  the  80s  and  90s.  Fort-Brescia  is  dressed  in  the 
firm's  famous  "hole  in  the  middle"  Atlantis  condominium,  built  in 
Miami  in  1982.  Spear  wears  the  building  from  their  42nd  Street 
Redevelopment  Project  in  New  York  City— a  gleaming  45-floor  structure 
whose  facade  evokes  a  crashing  meteor,  to  be  built  in  2000. 


on  his  head.  The  Chippendale  top  of  the 
Sony  Building  and  the  spires  of  the 
PPG  tower  are  synonymous  with  Philip 
Johnson,  as  strong  and  enduring  as 
his  considerable  persona.  (The  Johnson 
persona,  in  fact,  may  turn  out  to  be 
stronger  and  more  enduring  than  some 


of  his  many  building  styles.)  "Philip,) 
notes  Stern,  "is  the  only  one  in  the  cum 
rent  group  that  is  a  link  to  the  origin; 
Beaux-Arts  group,  and  that  is  very  n 
markable." 

"Architects  have  become  media  fij ' 
ures.  and  buildings  have  become  medi; 
ized  in  a  way,"  says  Peter  Eisenmar 
who  skipped  a  photo  shoot  for  the  Ga 
in  order  to  model  his  (unbuilt)  Ma 
Reinhardt  tower  for  Vam 
ty  Fair.  "The  old  Beau? 
Arts  photo  reflects  on 
simpler,  easier  time  wit 
these  guys  dressing  u 
like  Ku  Klux  Klanner 
for  this  party,"  Eisenma 
adds.  "Basically  we  are  i 
a  different  era.  People  ar 
much  more  with  it;  the* 
are  much  more  excited  b' 
personalities." 

Indeed,  no  two  biji 
league  architects  of  to 
day  could  (or  would 
be  caught  dead  in  idem' 
tical  grand-wizard-styl 
smocks,  such  as  thos 
you  see  on  the  architect 
in  the  Beaux-Arts  photc 
"This  is  a  time  of  plura 
ism  in  style,"  accordinr 
to  (the  extremely  stylist) 
cally  consistent)  Pei. 

And  strong  "brand, 
identity,  to  use  the  cani: 
of  the  day.  So  Richan 
Meier  (here  outfitted  a;' 
his  Barcelona  Museum  c> 
Contemporary  Art)  ha. 
become  the  White  Builci> 
ing  Man;  Sir  Normaj 
Foster  (who  models  hh 
Hong  Kong  Shangha 
Bank)  is  King  of  Slicci 
Tech;  Michael  Gravei 
(wearing  his  Humanr 
Building)  is  indubitabh 
Mr.  Postmodern.  The 
are  the  stylists  who  hav\ 
prevailed  in  the  turbuleri 
skies  of  the  media  age 

"The  guys  who  ar 
around  today  are  muc 
more  heavy  hitters  I 
terms  of  personality,"  a( 
knowledges  Eisenman,  m 
wallflower  himself.  "The  danger  of  ms 
dia  for  architects,  though,  is  that  medi 
feeds  on  constantly  changing  things 
It's  an  edge  game:  you  take  you 
chances  being  out  there,  because"— likk, 
the  Beaux-Arts  brethren  of  '31— "yo; 
could  also  be  gone."  □ 


w 
B 

too 


isav 


VANITY  FAIR /JULY  199 


lffy:; 


ratts 


( ntinued  from  page  106)  also  featured 
idealist,  Bernard  Fowler,  and  concen- 
»ed  less  on  basement  bebop  than  on 
I  ish  arrangements  of  standards.  The 
ijlition  of  Fowler  is,  visually  and  vo- 
jjy,  striking.  A  dreadlocked  veteran 
l>ion  singer  who  has  logged  time  in 
riious  short-lived  funk  and  rock  corn- 
it  ,  he  was  unfamiliar  with  most  of  the 
i terial  on  Long  Ago  &  Far  Away  until 
Ins  presented  it  to  him.  "I  went  into 
*  sic  wanting  to  do  stuff  like  Parlia- 
Int-Funkadelic,  Graham  Central  Sta- 
ll, and  Sly  Stone,"  says  Fowler.  "I 
f\  never  sung  standards,  but  I  love  a 
jjillenge."  The  results  are  surprisingly 
ftisfying.  In  Fowler's  and  the  Quintet's 
|ids,  Duke  Ellington's  "In  a  Senti- 
intal  Mood"  recalls  Nat  King  Cole, 
tile  "All  or  Nothing  at  All,"  a  hit  for 
!thur  Altman  and  Jack  Lawrence  in 
lilO,  veers  ingeniously  between  rumba 
ki  swing,  with  Fowler's  baritone  vari- 
ety evoking  Tony  Bennett,  Mel  Tor- 
l,  and  Billy  Eckstine— minus  the 
ifimaltz  and  histrionics  of  their  cock- 
(l-lounge  imitators.  "Bernard's  not  a 
(z  singer,  you  see,"  says  Watts.  "He 
flsn't  brought  up  singing  in  jazz  clubs 
ilounges,  so  he  doesn't  have  the  shoo- 
r-doo  bit.  He  sings  the  songs  very 
ijaight,  and  bends  them  like  a  blues 
tfger  would  bend  them,  so  the  melody 
Jtotally  there."  For  his  part,  Fowler 
is  sufficiently  overcome  the  intimida- 
|n  he  first  felt  in  the  presence  of  ac- 


complished jazz  players  that  he  now 
wants  to  be  known— in  the  tradition  of 
Torme's  sobriquet,  "the  Velvet  Fog"— as 
"the  Dreaded  Crooner." 

Watts  harbors  no  illusions  as  to  why 
he,  unlike  most  part-time  jazz  drum- 
mers, has  a  record  deal  and  gets  to  play 
to  full  houses.  "You  get  young  guys  [at 
Quintet  concerts]  who  are  curious,  but 
who  have  never  heard  anything  but  a  gui- 
tar solo,"  he  says.  "I'm  not  being  detri- 
mental. You  also  get  elitists,  people  who 
come  to  see  you  fall  on  your  arse.  Both 
are  valid.  If  an  elitist  says,  'Well,  he's  all 
right,  but  you  want  to  hear  Max  Roach 
playing  it  properly,'  that's  all  right  by  me. 
I  don't  mind  being  called  an  ambassador. 
When  I  was  a  kid,  Louis  Armstrong  was 
called  an  ambassador." 

Likening  himself  to  Woody  Allen,  an- 
other jazz  enthusiast  who  has  made  his 
name  elsewhere,  Watts  has  tailored  for 
himself  a  glorious  retro  aesthetic,  map- 
ping out  his  tastes  and  preferences  with 
the  precision  of  an  Art  Nouveau  dandy: 
Georgian  England  for  home  decor  and 
gardens,  30s  Hollywood  for  men's  dress, 
40s  New  York  for  music  and  urban  life. 
He  will  gladly  expound  at  length  on  such 
subjects  as  the  joy  of  getting  shoes  cus- 
tom-made ("a  nine-month  job  there"),  the 
low  point  in  the  history  of  men's  fashion 
("The  early  70s,  when  I  saw  the  only  pic- 
ture of  Fred  Astaire  where  I  thought, 
Don't  like  that,  Fred— he  was  wearing 
a  kerchief,  and  it  was  a  bit  sticking  out. 
It  was  Keith's  best  period  to  look  at, 
though"),  and  the  logistics  of  personally 


packing,  transporting,  and  unpacking  his 
sizable  wardrobe  when  the  Stones  tour: 
"We're  at  the  hotel,  and  Mick  says,  'Right, 
are  you  coming  out  to  eat?'  and  I  say, 
'No,  I'm  in  the  middle  of  folding  my  paja- 
mas,' and  he  says,  'Haven't  you  done  that 
yet?'  because  he  never  touches  a  bloody 
thing.  Mick's  got  a  valet,  three  or  four  peo- 
ple. I  could  have  that,  but  I  bloody  hate  it. 
Nobody  touches  my  clothes." 

As  it  happens,  the  Quintet's  planned 
summer  swing  through  the  U.S.  (aug- 
mented by  a  23-piece  orchestra)  dovetails 
nicely  with  the  so-called  easy-listening  re- 
vival that  has  college  kids  ordering  marti- 
nis and  cuddling  up  to  Bennett  and  Tor- 
me  again.  Watts  is  happy  for  his  outfit  to 
reap  the  benefits  of  this  trend,  but  for 
him  the  romance  of  mid-century  America 
is  not  a  pose;  it's  not,  as  it  is  with  many 
people  under  30,  a  life  lived  between  quo- 
tation marks.  The  suits,  the  combed-back 
hair,  the  constant  referencing  of  Bird  and 
Astaire— all  speak  to  his  yearning  to  hold 
on  to  whatever  vestiges  of  elegance  and 
integrity  remain  in  20th-century  life.  As 
he  discusses  the  thinning  ranks  of  great 
jazz  drummers,  his  visage  for  once  be- 
comes almost  animated.  "Art  Blakey, 
there  was  so  much  tension  when  he 
played,"  he  says.  "He  was  so  loud  and 
quiet  at  the  same  time.  Now  he's  gone— 
you  just  think,  all  that  noise  and  silence, 
gone.  You  must  go  and  see  these  people 
play  while  you  can.  You  must  go  see  Max 
Roach  play,  because  he's  phenomenal. 
Roy  Haynes— you  must  see  him  play. 
Even  if  you  don't  like  the  way  they  play, 
you've  got  to  see  them  play."  D 


trisham  \:  Stone 

hntinued  from  page  105)  difficult,  more 
Implex,  than  for  many  of  Sarah's  peers. 
|  age  14  she  responded  to  the  news  of 
r  grandfather's  death  by  throwing  a 
fephone  through  the  window  and  paint- 
p  her  room  black.  Over  time  she  made 
Its  on  her  wrists  and  burned  her  arms 
Bth  cigarettes. 

J" We  tried  to  feel  our  way,  without  be- 
h  repressive,"  Suzanne  says.  The  Ed- 
pndsons  knew  that  both  Sarah  and  her 
Her  brother  had  tried  pot.  "We  have  in- 
digent, curious  kids,  and  we  were  not 
jrprised,"  Suzanne  says.  But  when  Sarah 
Igan  taking  harder  drugs,  they  were  too 
jive  to  notice. 

j'Td  think  she  was  tucked  into  bed," 
in  says,  "and  then  she'd  sneak  out  her 
Indow  and  go  down  the  tree  and  stay 

iSITY  FAIR/JULY  1996 


out  all  night."  A  Tom  Sawyer  of  her 
times,  tripping  on  LSD.  Eventually  Sar- 
ah's parents  had  her  see  a  therapist;  when 
at  15  she  said  she  wanted  to  drop  out  of 
school,  and  had  moved  to  a  friend's 
house  and  refused  to  come  home,  they 
drove  her  to  a  rehab  center  for  adoles- 
cents, where  she  stayed  for  two  months. 

Back  in  school,  Sarah  earned  good  grades. 
She  edited  the  opinion  page  of  the  newspa- 
per, as  her  father  had  done  years  before, 
and  helped  produce  the  yearbook.  She  still 
hung  out  with  the  druggy  crowd,  however. 
And  from  saving  stray  cats  she  graduated 
to  "rescue  missions,"  as  her  parents  called 
them,  to  help  deeply  troubled  boyfriends. 
One  followed  her  to  Connors  State  College, 
leading  her  to  drop  out.  For  the  spring 
term  she  enrolled  at  Northeastern  State 
University.  But  then  she  met  Ben  Darras. 

Sarah  introduced  her  new  friend,  a 
slight,  dark-haired  introvert,  to  her  par- 


ents out  at  the  cabin  over  Valentine's  Day 
weekend  of  last  year.  "We  assumed  he 
was  a  Northeastern  student,"  Suzanne 
says.  "He  was  not;  I  only  found  that  out 
after  he  was  arrested.  I  asked  him  about 
his  family,  but  Ben  is  kind  of  reserved.  He 
would  answer  my  questions  yes  or  no." 
Later,  the  Edmondsons  would  learn  that 
Ben  lived  near  Northeastern's  campus  in 
Tahlequah,  that  he  played  in  a  local  band 
and  lived  at  home  with  his  mother,  Debra 
Lafon,  who  works  for  a  doctor. 

Sarah's  behavior  and  her  performance 
in  school  were  erratic  enough  that  her  par- 
ents sensed  she  might  be  doing  drugs  again. 
Still,  they  were  shocked  when  Sarah  failed 
to  appear  for  her  father's  50th-birthday  din- 
ner. Late  that  evening,  after  the  Edmond- 
sons were  in  bed,  the  phone  rang.  Blearily, 
Suzanne  picked  up  the  receiver  and  heard 
her  daughter's  voice.  "I'm  in  another  state," 
Sarah  said.  With  Ben  Darras.  Suzanne 

141 


"""" " — ■• — 


Grisham  v.  Stone 

replied,  "I'm  too  tired  for  this:  shame  on 
you.  you  disappointed  your  father." 

That  was  the  evening  of  March  7,  1995, 
the  day  Bill  Savage  was  killed. 

Later,  the  Edmondsons  would  learn 
how  many  drugs  Sarah  says  she  and  Ben 
took  on  March  5,  and  how  many  times, 
over  the  preceding  days,  they  had  watched 
the  newly  released  video  version  of  Natur- 
al Born  Killers.  "I  didn't  know  the  signifi- 
cance until  I  talked  to  my  son,"  says  Jim. 
"Jimmy  and  Sarah  saw  it  together.  And 
.  .  .  from  what  I  could  pick  up  from  Jim, 
she  and  Ben  had  watched  it  anywhere 
from  half  a  dozen  to  two  dozen  times.  It 
seems  to  me  that  on  one  occasion  they 
watched  it  six  times  in  one  night,  over  and 
over,  doing  drugs  watching  that." 

One  night  at  about  three  a.m.,  weeks  af- 
ter Sarah's  disappearance,  Suzanne  came 
downstairs.  She  hadn't  been  sleeping  well. 
In  a  little  den  off  the  kitchen,  she  saw  a 
figure  in  the  dark:  her  daughter,  sitting  up 
and  dressed.  "I  said  'Thank  God,'  you 
know?  'Enough  of  this  crazy  bouncing 
from  pillar  to  post.'  And  we  had  a  really 
good  conversation."  Sarah,  it  seemed,  had 
undergone  a  spiritual  conversion  on  her 
road  trip;  she  was  a  Bible-quoting  Fun- 
damentalist. "It  may  have  been  drug- 
induced,  I  don't  know,"  her  mother  sighs, 
"but  it  brought  her  to  a  sense  of  serenity." 

For  the  shortest  grace  period,  the  Ed- 
mondsons were  a  family  again.  Then,  at 
five  p.m.  on  June  2,  Jim  and  Suzanne 
opened  the  door  of  their  big  gray  house  to 
find  F.B.I,  agents  with  a  warrant  for 
Sarah's  arrest.  While  waiting  for  her  to  re- 
turn home,  the  agents  drove  to  the  Ed- 
mondsons' cabin  and  retrieved  the  gun. 
Tests  would  confirm  that  it  was  the  gun 
used  to  shoot  Patsy  Byers.  In  deference  to 
the  judge,  the  agents  remained  in  the  shad- 
ows that  night  when  Sarah  returned  home 
from  an  amusement  park  in  a  car  full  of 
friends,  among  them  Ben  Darras.  Sarah's 
father  took  her  aside  and  wrapped  her  in 
his  arms.  Then  gently,  his  heart  breaking, 
he  told  her  the  F.B.I,  wanted  to  question 
her,  and  recited  to  his  daughter  her  Miranda 
rights.  Darras  was  arrested  at  the  same  time. 

Do  the  Edmondsons  blame  themselves? 

Suzanne  looks  to  Jim. 

"Someone  said  that  you  can't  take 
credit  for  your  children  if  they  succeed," 
Jim  says  slowly,  "so  you  shouldn't  have  to 
take  the  blame  if  they  fail." 

"We  have  regrets,"  Suzanne  says. 
"Sarah  wanted  very  much  to  go  to  me- 
chanics' school  to  learn  power  mechan- 
ics, and  we  told  her,  'Let's  go  through 

142 


college  first.'  Why  didn't  we  just  let  her?" 
In  letters  and  twice-weekly  calls  since 

their  last  visit,  Sarah  has  said  her  faith 

has  grown  so  profound  that  she's  started 

speaking  in  tongues. 

"Speaking  in  tongues,"  Jim  Edmondson 

says.  "I  wonder  what  that's  going  to  be  like." 

1  wonder,  too,  a  week  later  as  Steve  Farese 
introduces  me  to  Sarah  Edmondson  and 
the  three  of  us  squeeze  into  a  cinder-block 
waiting  room  hardly  larger  than  a  closet. 
But  Sarah  answers  my  questions  directly 
and  openly,  as  normal-seeming  as  a  girl 
with  good  posture  can  seem  in  a  Louisiana 
jail.  She  says  her  childhood  was  fine,  her 
parents  loving,  her  interests  various. 

But  then  what?  I  want  to  know.  What 
besides  the  changes  of  puberty  sets  a  girl 
with  every  opportunity  on  a  course  to 
this  place? 

"Where  my  parents  saw  drugs  in  col- 
lege days,  and  my  brother,  who's  six  years 
older,  saw  them  in  high  school,  I  saw 
them  in  junior  high,"  Sarah  says.  "When 
all  the  mixed  emotions  and  changes  start 
happening  with  your  body,  the  mixture  of 
things  with  drugs  is  right  there." 

What  about  her  parents? 

"They  tried,"  Sarah  says.  "But  in  A.A. 
they  say  you  have  to  change  people, 
places,  and  things.  I  know  that  now,  but  as 
soon  as  I  got  out  of  Shadow  Mountain 
[the  rehab  center]  I  was  with  the  same 
friends,  and  it  wasn't  but  the  next  night 
that  they  said,  :Come  on,  we're  going  to 
get  high,'  and  it  was  like,  man,  I  gotta  go." 

LSD  was  Sarah's  drug  of  choice,  she 
explains.  By  16,  she  was  also  doing  speed, 
quaaludes,  and  other  pills.  "And  marijuana 
was  an  everyday  drug,  like  eating  or 
breathing."  Yet  part  of  her  always  wanted 
to  be  healthy.  The  "rescue  missions,"  she 
says,  made  her  feel  useful;  they  also  gave 
her  some  sense  of  control  in  an  increasingly 
chaotic  life.  That  was  what  drew  her  to  Ben. 

"This  sounds  so  twisted,  but  he  re- 
minded me  a  lot  of  my  first  really  serious 
boyfriend.  I'd  just  lost  him  to  heroin,  and 
it  really  at  the  time  destroyed  a  big  part 
of  me.  And  then  I  met  Ben,  and  Ben 
looked  like  him,  talked  like  him,  had 
many  ideas  like  him,  but  wasn't  that  far 
gone.  And  I  was  just  like.  Here's  the  res- 
cue mission  of  all  rescue  missions." 

There  was  a  house  off -campus  where 
the  druggies  hung  out.  They  called  it  the 
Commune.  That  was  where  Sarah  met 
Ben.  In  mid-February,  Natural  Born  Kil- 
lers was  scheduled  to  come  out  on  video. 
One  friend  from  the  house  rented  it  as 
soon  as  it  arrived.  That  day  they  played  it 
three  or  four  times.  "It  was,  like,  not  just 
sitting  down  watching  it,"  Sarah  says.  "It 


faces 
fen* 


Of 

i  a 
t  seein 

I  to  i 

pew 

:who 

:e  ai 

ce! 

I;a" 


101  '" 


was  just  on  in  the  place,  and  we  w 
moving  about,  getting  high  and  talk 
because  of  the  sound  track." 

Everybody  loved  it,  and  not  just  for 
music.  "The  acid  element  we  loved  becz 
we  were  all  acid  freaks.  And  so  when 
see  the  head  going  Yruuh  rruuhhh  rruuh 
we're  saying,  'Yes,  that  happens!'  H 
goes  all  jellylike."  More  than  one  mem 
of  the  house  related  to  the  flashback  sc 
where  Mallory  is  sexually  abused  by  hei 
ther.  For  Ben  a  compelling  moment,  Sa 
remembers,  was  a  quick  flashback  that 
pears  to  show  Mickey's  father  out  in  a  f 
with  a  shotgun,  about  to  kill  himself.  ' 
movie  implies  that  violence  runs  in  M 
ey's  family;  that's  why  Mickey  is  a  natu. 
born  killer.  According  to  Sarah,  Ben's 
ther  had  been  abusive  to  his  mother.  T  Le's 
divorced  when  Ben  was  12.  A  year  later,  i  re  jdf 
father  committed  suicide.  (Darras's  mot  „v 
could  not  be  reached  for  comment.) 

The  evening  of  March  5,  Sarah  w^ 
plains,  she  and  Ben  went  on  a  drug  birr  l0  KI 
First  they  took  four  tabs  of  acid.  £&  %* 
Then  they  took  four  and  a  half  tabs  mo  ^ 
Each.  Seventeen  tabs  in  all.  That's  wll  ^ 
they  decided  to  go  to  the  cabin.  They  iL^ 
a  little  pot  left,  but  no  more  hallucinogei  t  \t, 
drugs.  At  the  cabin  they  watched  NatUi,M( 
Born  Killers  on  the  Edmondsons'  VCR.  m  0| 

Did  Sarah  and  Ben  decide  to  emb?; 
on  a  road  trip  like  the  one  in  Natuuig 
Born  Killers'!  \{[X 

Sarah  hesitates.  y 

"At  that  point,  if  there  were  any  cd  m 
nections  to  the  movie,  I  wasn't  aware 
them,"  she  says.  n^{ 

"So  is  it  going  too  far  to  say  that  Ben  ,  j  $. 
like  Mickey  or  that  you  felt  like  Mallory}  4  ^, 

"Oh  yeah,  that's  pushing  it,"  Sarah  sa^  js  „ 
"As  far  as  how  much  this  case  is  leaning ;  K\(i 
Natural  Born  Killers,  it  is  one  of  many  a,  [m 
ments.  ...  It  has  its  influence,  but  it  is  11^ 
as  great  as  I  would  like  to  make  it  be.  .  (y. 
And  I  wish  I  could  say  that  it  did.  I  wis 
could  point  the  finger  at  Hollywood  coo^ 
pletely.  But  that's  not  so,  that's  not  honest  ^ 

In  her  statement,  Sarah  says  that  1iftt, 
convenience-store  clerk's  face  turned  ii 
a  "demon."  In  Natural  Born  Killers,  Mim^ 
ey  and  Mallory,  while  high  on  halluciti  for 
genie  drugs  during  a  visit  with  an  Indi 
shaman,  feel  the  presence  of  "demon;^., 
The  word  "demon"  is  also  superimpos^ 
on  Mickey's  chest.  Sarah  says  that  sl^ 
has  had  acid  flashbacks  on  occasion  sin 
the  age  of  14,  and  that  after  March    ^ 
1995,  "things  have  never  been  the  sairu 
Both  Jim  Boren  and  Steve  Farese  suggn  «jj 
that  serious  flashbacks  may  have  affect  \Kr 
Sarah  on  the  first  days  of  her  road  trip.  ^ 

I'm  not  allowed  to  ask  about  the  evei  ^ 
of  March  7  and  8,  1995,  so  I  put  the  ce)ffl 


VANITY  FAIR /JULY  IS 


Sii, 


I  question  broadly:  Has  Sarah  seen  peo- 

s  faces  turn  into  demons? 

She  nods.  "I  have  experienced  that." 

iVhat  did  she  see? 

'It's  like  .  .  .  if  you  take  the  Devil  with 

Pitchfork  and  that's  what  you've  grown 

'with  all  your  life,  then  when  you  pic- 

;  seeing  the  Devil,  that's  what  you're 

ng  to  see.  ...  It  depends  a  lot  on  who 

person  is.  Like  my  ex-boyfriend  [the 
:  who  turned  Sarah  in]— oooieee!  Twist- 
face  and  sprouted  horns." 
Since  her  incarceration,  Sarah's  flash- 
es have  subsided.  She  is  a  model  pris- 
;r.  She  tutors  some  of  the  older  wom- 

in  math.  And  when  schoolkids  come 

tours  of  the  jail,  Sarah  tells  them  not 

take  drugs.  "At  first  it  was,  like, 
lere's  Sarah,  there's  Sarah'  .  .  .  They 
re  idolizing  me  because  I'd  been  on 
I  not  what  I'd  been  on  TV  for"— just 
;  the  characters  in  Natural  Born  Killers. 
w  her  notoriety  is  fading,  and  it's  easi- 
'to  get  her  message  out. 
What  would  she  say,  I  wonder,  to  Patsy 
brs? 
Behind  her  gold-rimmed  glasses,  Sarah's 

s  brim.  "I  don't  think  I  can  say  on 
te.  If  there  would  be  any  source  of  heal- 

or  closure  to  let  her  know,  to  explain 
by  of  the  other  things  ..." 

Jalf  an  hour  south  on  1-55  is  the  exit 
lfor  Ponchatoula.  Right  off  the  ramp, 
Route  22  becomes  Main  Street,  is  the 
•mer  Time  Saver  No.  8,  now  an  E-Z 
rve.  The  Byerses  live  outside  town,  on  a 
id  of  neatly  kept  trailers,  grassy  fields, 
d  Spanish  moss.  They  have  a  double- 
de,  set  back  on  half  an  acre.  You  can't 
ss  it:  it's  the  one  with  the  new  wooden 
eelchair  ramp. 

Lonnie  Byers,  a  lean,  somber  Creole 
io  drives  trucks  at  night,  has  just  got- 
l  up  at  a  little  after  noon,  but  is  at- 
iding  already  to  his  wife,  who  lies  on  a 
sed  medical  bed.  Patsy  Byers  has  pret- 
blond  hair  and  a  handsome  face  set  in 
es  harder  than  they  should  be  for  her 
years.  A  hose  extrudes  from  her  chest 
d  winds  back  to  a  respirator. 
For  nine  months  after  the  shooting, 
tsy  was  in  hospitals,  first  in  Baton 
hige,  then  in  Houston.  The  bullet  had 
ittered  her  C-5  vertebra,  which  means 
;  has  almost  no  movement  below  her 
ck.  With  physical  therapy,  she  has  man- 
ed  to  move  her  left  arm  just  enough  to 
)rk  an  electric  wheelchair. 
"Had  you  ever  been  in  a  hospital  be- 
•e?"  I  ask.  Stupidly. 

"No,"  Patsy  says  in  a  whispery  drawl, 
bst  for  childbirth."  She  has  three  chil- 
en;  she  was  married  at  16. 

kllTY  FAIR/JULY  1996 


"I  hate  hospitals." 

The  respirator  wheezes  as  Patsy  draws 
breath.  "Me  too." 

Patsy  had  been  working  at  tne  Time 
Saver  for  only  a  month  when  the  shoot- 
ing occurred.  It  was  the  first  job  she'd 
ever  held  outside  the  home.  She  took  it 
for  pocket  money— $5.25  an  hour— and 
for  something  to  do.  The  night  shift  was 
great  for  her,  since  that  was  Lonnie's 
shift,  too.  "And  my  daughter  being  19, 
she  was  the  baby-sitter.  So  that  was  all 
worked  out  pretty  good." 

The  night  of  March  8,  1995,  Patsy  had 
been  working  about  50  minutes  when  the 
strange  girl  with  the  hooded  sweater  came 
in.  The  girl  shot  her  and  ran  out.  Patsy 
collapsed  to  the  floor  beside  the  register. 
She  never  did  lose  consciousness,  though. 

"So  then  what  happened?" 

"We  have  a  buzzer  on  the  door  that 
lets  you  know  someone's  come  in.  About 
two  minutes  after  she  left  I  heard  it  again. 
I  wasn't  thinking.  I  started  hollering, 
'Someone  help  me."  No  one  came  over. 
So  I  hollered  again.  Then  I  saw  her  come 
around  the  counter.  That's  when  she  said, 
'You're  not  dead.  I'll  finish  you.'  I  said, 
'No,  don't  shoot,  get  the  money.'  Then 
she  asked  me  how  to  open  the  register.  It 
was  complicated  because  I  had  already 
rung  her  up.  I  didn't  have  the  strength  to 
tell  her.  I  said,  'Help  me  up  and  I'll  show 
you.'  At  that  time  I  didn't  know  I  was 
paralyzed.  She  just  ignored  me.  So  I  ig- 
nored her.  Somehow  she  got  it  open.  She 
took  the  money  and  she  went  out.  And 
that's  the  last  time  I  saw  her." 

Sarah's  lawyers,  I  tell  her,  are  prone  to 
say  this  story  is  a  tragedy  for  all  con- 
cerned. Patsy  grimaces.  "The  tragedy  is 
me  and  the  Mississippi  man.  Not  them," 
she  says  of  Ben  and  Sarah. 

The  question  I  have  as  I  re-emerge 
from  the  Byerses's  trailer— appreciating 
for  a  moment  the  simple  pleasure  of  walk- 
ing—is this:  Would  Ben  and  Sarah  have 
done  what  they're  accused  of  doing  with- 
out the  influence  of  Natural  Born  Killers! 

Oliver  Stone,  of  course,  has  his  own  an- 
swers. In  a  response  to  Grisham  pub- 
lished in  L.A.  Weekly,  the  director  declares 
that  his  accuser  "is  on  the  age-old  hunt  for 
witches  to  explain  society's  ills  .  .  .  ignor- 
ing Shakespeare,  who  reminds  us  that 
artists  do  not  invent  nature  but  merely 
hold  it  up  to  a  mirror."  Follow  Grisham's 
logic,  he  suggests,  and  look  where  it  leads. 
"Has  your  father  been  brutalized?  Sue 
Oedipus  and  call  Hamlet  as  a  witness.  Do 
you  hate  your  mother?  Blame  Medea  and 
Joan  Crawford.  Has  your  lawyer-husband 
been  unfaithful?  Slap  a  summons  on  Grish- 


am since,  after  all,  he  wrote  The  Firm." 
Grisham,  observes  Stone,  says  that  both 
Sarah  and  Ben  had  had  serious  drug  prob- 
lems and  received  psychiatric  treatment.  If 
they  watched  Natural  Born  Killers  "at  the 
crucial  moment  when  the  carefully  twisted 
springs  of  their  psyches  finally  uncoiled," 
the  film  is  hardly  to  blame  for  that.  Par- 
ents and  schools  are  more  accountable;  so 
is  television,  with  images  of  violence  far 
more  pervasive  than  those  of  one  two-hour 
film.  Even  so,  Stone  writes,  "an  elementary 
principle  of  our  civilization  is  that  people 
are  responsible  for  their  own  actions." 

Two  of  the  country's  best-known  First 
Amendment  lawyers  agree  with  Stone, 
and  find  Grisham's  legal  reasoning  dubi- 
ous at  best.  "I'm  kind  of  surprised  by 
Grisham,"  muses  Martin  Garbus,  who 
has  represented  Andrei  Sakharov  and  Pe- 
ter Matthiessen.  "We  all  believe  words 
have  some  meaning  .  .  .  but  product  lia- 
bility? That's  silly.  The  whole  point  of 
product  liability  is  that  you  have  to  show 
a  causal  effect.  With  breast  implants— or 
with  cigarettes  .  .  .  we've  seen  over  the 
years  how  hard  it  is  to  prove  causal  ef- 
fect. When  you  get  into  the  area  of  what 
triggers  a  person's  mind,  you  get  into  the 
realm  of  fairy  tales.  .  .  .  When  I  was  a 
kid,  I  was  terrified  by  Fantasia  and  by 
Bambi,  when  the  mother  deer  was  killed. 
Those  moments  are  etched  in  my  mind. 
But  I  didn't  go  out  and  murder  anyone 
because  of  it." 

Even  if  such  an  effect  could  be  shown, 
says  Floyd  Abrams,  who  has  represented 
The  New  York  Times  since  the  Pentagon 
Papers,  "the  notion  that  because  one  crazed 
person  reacts  to  a  book  or  movie  by  doing 
something  illegal  the  moviemaker  or  writer 
should  be  liable  is  at  war  with  the  First 
Amendment."  So,  says  Abrams,  is  Grish- 
am's whole  notion  of  a  film  as  a  product. 
"[Grisham's]  books,  modest  from  a  literary 
perspective,  are  not  like  breast  implants. 
They  are  fully  protected  First  Amendment 
speech,  and  the  notion  of  judging  them 
from  some  almost  undefinable  negligence 
standards  is  very  troubling." 

From  his  horse  farm  in  Virginia,  Grish- 
am issues  a  tart  reply  for  Vanity  Fair: 
"The  issue  is  not  whether  Oliver  Stone's 
movies  are  protected  by  the  First  Amend- 
ment. They  are.  He  can  make  anything  he 
wants,  regardless  of  how  nauseating.  Por- 
nographers  share  the  same  protection,  be- 
cause, hey,  they're  artists!  But  the  issue  is 
responsibility:  should  Stone  and  his  ilk  be 
held  responsible  if,  and  only  if,  a  direct 
causal  link  can  be  proven  between  a  movie 
(or  a  book  or  a  song)  and  the  violence  in- 
spired by  it?  I'll  admit  this  is  a  very  diffi- 

143 


mnnmnmi  nmmrii 


Grisham  v.  Stone 

cult  standard  to  meet,  but  when  causation 
is  clearly  proven,  then  the  'artist'  should  be 
held  liable.  And  the  'artist'  should  be  re- 
quired to  share  the  responsibility  along  with 
the  nut  who  actually  pulled  the  trigger. 

"No  right  is  absolute;  nor  does  the  exer- 
cising of  a  right  automatically  shield  one 
from  liability.  The  Second  Amendment 
gives  me  the  right  to  keep  a  loaded  gun  in 
my  house.  But  if  I  leave  it  on  the  coffee 
table,  and  the  kid  next  door  shoots  himself 
with  it,  then  I'll  be  held  liable  for  my  neg- 
ligence. In  the  process,  my  Second  Amend- 
ment rights  will  never  be  questioned." 

Oliver  Stone,  presented  with  Grisham's 
indictment,  responds  in  turn  from  Los 
Angeles.  "If  Grisham  were  the  author  of 
delightful  bedtime  stories,  I  could  perhaps 
understand  his  perspective  on  my  work. 
However,  given  the  fact  that  his  work  is 
all  built  around  the  committing  of  heinous 
crimes  (murder,  the  rape  of  a  young  child, 
suicide),  his  attacks  on  me  seem  more 
than  disingenuous.  The  fact  is,  Mr.  Grish- 
am has  become  a  very  rich  man  off  a 
body  of  work  which  utilizes  violent  crime 
as  a  foundation  for  mass  entertainment. 

"For  example,  his  book  (soon  to  be  a 
major  motion  picture)  A  Time  to  Kill  has 
as  its  protagonist  a  man  who  murders  with 
clear  premeditation  two  young  racists  who 


raped  his  10-year-old  daughter  (a  rape 
which  Mr.  Grisham  writes  about  in  horri- 
fyingly graphic  detail).  The  man's  lawyer 
wins  his  freedom  for  these  murders  of 
vengeance.  Mr.  Grisham  invites  his  readers 
to  cheer  the  man's  release,  although  he  is 
unequivocally  guilty  of  murder. 

"Thus,  one  may  presume  that,  accord- 
ing to  Mr.  Grisham's  logic,  the  next  time 
a  'righteous'  revenge  murder  takes  place 
(or,  for  that  matter,  the  rape  of  a  child) 
he  will  be  happy  to  assume  liability  if  it 
can  be  shown  that  the  offender  had  read 
or  seen  A  Time  to  Kill. " 

Point  to  Mr.  Stone,  though  it  seems,  to 
this  moderator,  that  Grisham  presents  his 
violence  within  a  moral  order.  His  protag- 
onist in  A  Time  to  Kill  is  found  not  guilty 
by  reason  of  insanity,  but  only  after  a 
lengthy  trial  that  shows  all  the  checks  and 
balances  of  the  law  at  work.  Natural  Born 
Killers  has  no  moral  frame. 

Stone,  of  course,  disagrees. 

"Natural  Born  Killers  is  an  in-your-face 
satire  of  a  moral  order  turned  upside 
down,"  he  declares.  "It's  a  wake-up  call  to 
a  schizophrenic  country  and  culture  which 
decries  violence  but  just  can't  get  enough 
of  it.  Viewers  are  bombarded  day  in  and 
day  out  by  tabloid  trash  shows,  entertain- 
ment and  news  programs  which  convert 
tragedy  into  soap  opera,  replete  with 
weepy  musical  sound  tracks  and  reportage 
that  drips  with  fake  emotion.  ...  So 


much  for  the  'moral  order'  that  Nati 
Born  Killers  is  accused  of  upsetting." 

Stone's  response  is  persuasive,  and    i 
against  it,  Grisham's  argument  pales. 


HL 


l'Mr.( 


be:  ( 

I  J  MS 


tablishing  cause  and  effect  between  scri|ia 
violence  and  real-life  violence  seems 
but  impossible  to  do  in  any  clear,  de 
able  way;  even  if  it  were  possible,  allow 
courts  to  draw  lines  between  accepta  II 
and  unacceptable  art  would  not  only  s  s; 
vert  the  First  Amendment  but  be  a 
prescription  for  Fascism. 

Yet  Grisham's  modest  proposal  obscu  l 
a  broader  point  that  he  can  make  on  firr 
ground.  If  Stone  were  the  sort  of  emt  \ 
tied  artist  he  likes  to  imagine  himself, 
art  would  be  seen,  or  heard,  or  read  by  o*tl 
a  small,  sophisticated  audience.  Even  so.,  ame ie 
artists  have  for  centuries,  he  would  brr  "Then 
some  self-censorship  to  bear.  As  a  ma| 
market  filmmaker,  he  communicates  witlD  teo  i 
far  larger,  less  educated  audience— one  M  oe 
may,  for  example,  take  his  screen  violen 
literally,  and  not  see  a  "moral  order  turn  ni» 
upside  down."  But  Stone  seems  oblivicweraior 
to  any  sense  of  responsibility  his  role  en 
fers.  Worse,  shown  the  ways  in  which  cc 
fused  youths   interpret   his   sophisticate  mine » 
message,  he  does  not  seem  inclined  to  <  <ts 
flection  concerning  his  artistic  methods.,!  iGm 

Stone  knows  an  artist  has  to  sta4a> 
against  outside  censorship  of  any  kind, 
just  doesn't  yet  see  that  artists  have  to 
accountable  too.  D 


Later 


Ida 


D 


ft 


five-year-old  son  from  a  previous  relation « 
ship  with  actress  Christina  Fulton.  Thlh 
share  custody,  and  I  seemed  to  hear  prai*it 
for  his  paternal  devotion  from  everyow  ration 
Weston  is  the  spitting  image  of  his  fatht 

"Oh,  boy,"  says  Cage,  leaping  off  t 
couch  and  reaching  for  a  photo  on  t 
coffee  table,  "look  at  this.  This  is  me  whlilt 
I  was  three  with  my  father.  I  look  like  I 
dad  and  Weston  looks  like  me."  Then 
crosses  the  room  and  comes  back  w 
two  pieces  of  one-inch-thick  wood.  "This>ln 
the  board  Weston  broke  in  Tae  Kwon  II  abdui 
class,"  he  says  proudly.  Weston  is  about  t|  it  & 
get  his  orange  belt.  i  med 

I  notice  his  Oscar  sitting  on  top  of  tud  3 
television  and  I  ask  him  what  that  nig:  mm 
was  like.  I  knew  from  Cher  that  he  hunp 
felt  particularly  lucky  that  day  because  i  $i  u 
had  seen  the  actress  riding  her  Harley  F  Dii  [ 
Boy  and  had  taken  it  as  an  omen  that  t  \  xild ; 
gods  of  Hollywood  were  with  him. 

His  eyes  brighten  to  a  warm  baby  bU^ 
as  he  confesses  that  on  the  night  itself  L..  |  i|tt 
suddenly  turned  into  a  small  town.  Ever  y 
one  was  with  him— almost.  "It  was  an  tut."! 
perience,  actually.  There's  a  great  glai  %, 


Cage 


(Continued  from  page  81)  walls  and  bowls 
of  brightly  colored  Murano  glass  ...  the 
matching  sofas  ...  the  large  gargoyles  .  .  . 
the  fireplace  with  a  child's  portrait  on  the 
mantel  ...  the  trains  .  .  .  books  .  .  .  more 
glass  .  .  .  sunshine  ...  a  landscape  paint- 
ing ..  .  and,  dangling  from  the  ceiling,  a 
large  .  .  .  fake  ...  killer  ..  .  bee. 

He's  genuine  about  his  passions,  even 
modest.  "I  don't  pretend  to  be  a  connois- 
seur. I  would  call  myself  an  enthusiast.  I'm 
passionate  about  adventure— about  the 
beauty  of  an  old  train."  The  day  before, 
when  the  subject  of  his  love  of  objects 
came  up,  he  told  me,  "I  don't  have  much 
freedom.  I  don't  have  much  time.  I've 
been  working  since  I  was  17,  and  I'm  very 
thankful  for  that.  But  I've  always  had  an 
obligation.  And  sometimes  the  only  way  I 
can  feel  free  is  in  the  mobility  I  get  when 
I  spend  money.  I'll  say,  I  will  have  that 
bottle  of  wine,'  or  'I  will  go  to  San  Fran- 
cisco— now.'  It  has  to  happen  in  small  dos- 
es, because  beyond  that  I'm  spoken  for." 


But  he's  found  it  hard  to  live  down  the 
outlaw  image  he  openly  cultivated  at  the 
beginning  of  his  career.  His  previous  ex- 
ploits, after  all,  are  preserved  on  the  Nexis 
database.  He  will  never  outlive,  for  example, 
the  time  he  smashed  up  a  trailer  on  the  set 
of  The  Cotton  Club.  "I  wanted  to  generate 
stories  about  myself,"  Cage  explains.  "I 
was  trying  to  create  a  mythology  around 
myself.  All  my  heroes  had  stories  around 
them,  whether  they  were  true  or  false. 
[But]  I  quickly  learned  that  you  can't  have 
a  life  if  you  live  the  part."  Jim  Carrey  re- 
members a  period  "when  Nick  was  just  a 
little  bit  dangerous  to  be  around.  He  was 
just  expressing  himself.  He'd  stare  at  some- 
one in  a  really  weird  way  just  to  see  what 
the  reaction  was.  And  I  said,  'Well,  what  are 
you  being  a  psycho  for?'  But  he's  matured. 
He's  gotten  sophisticated  about  it  now." 

Indeed,  in  this  house,  which  looks  and 
feels  like  a  movie  star's  house,  it's  hard 
to  imagine  anything  more  dangerous 
than  bandied  repartee.  I  ask  Cage  about 
the  blue-eyed  child  in  the  photograph  on 
the  mantel. 

"That's  Weston,"  he  says.  Weston  is  his 


It 


Jtkii 
me, 


144 


VANITY  FAIR /JULY  15 


■      fe 


i  named  Chihuly.  I  love  his  work.  After 
on,  I  went  to  the  Governor's  Ball  be- 
se  I  really  wanted  to  meet  him.  ...  I 
,  'Mr.  Chihuly,  I'm  Nick  Cage  and  I'm 
jasshead  and  I  love  your—'"  Cage 
vns.  "And  then  I  was  hurt.  Because 

Chihuly  kind  of  went  off:  'Mr.  Trump! 

Donald  Trump!'  I  thought,  Ah,  man. 

1,  that  saves  me  about  $20,000.  You 
rw,  it  hurt  me.  But  then  the  night  got 
iizing.  We  went  into  this  restaurant  and 
•e  was  Stevie  Wonder.  And  I  said  to 

,  'Mr.  Wonder,  this  is  my  wife,  Patri- 

She's  my  "golden  lady." '  Which  is  his 
it  song.  And  he  took  her  hand  and 
g  'Golden  Lady'  to  her,  which  was 
rtbreakingly  beautiful.  ...  So  my  night 
ame  terrific  then. 

"Then  we  came  back  here  and  Jim  came 
Phil  was  here.  My  cousin  Roman 
wed  up.  And  the  Cassavetes  sisters 
le  by.  Arid  my  cousin  Sophia  My  agent, 
(hard  Lovett,  and  my  manager,  Gerry 
crington.  I  got  some  caviar  out  of  the  re- 
lator and  we  had  a  little  soiree  here." 
^ater,  when  I  spoke  to  Roman  Coppo- 
he  said,  "What  struck  me  about  the 
ning  was  that  it  reminded  me  of  the  pic- 
3S  you  used  to  see  of  Howard  Hughes 
1  Gary  Cooper  hanging  out  at  Chasen's. 
fas  thinking  that  someday  we'll  be  look- 

at  a  picture  of  Nick  and  Patricia  and 
ji  and  Phil  from  that  night." 

~^y  atricia  wrote  me  a  note,  a  sweet  note, 
about  a  week  after  the  Oscars," 
ge  is  saying.  "It  said,  'Before,  women 
fited  you.  But  when  you  went  up  there 
l  had  my  lipstick  on  your  face.  It  was 
i/in  for  every  married  couple  and  a  eel- 
ration  of  marriage.' " 
The  whole  thing  sounds  like  an  update 
the  Doris  Day  formula.  Guy  meets  girl 
the  corner  deli.  He  falls  madly  in  love. 
;  gets  beard  burn  on  the  first  date.  "We 
re  kissing  and  kissing  and  kissing,"  Ar- 
btte,  who  has  since  become  more  guard- 
told  the  London  Observer.  They  parted 
er  three  weeks— he  had  this  crazy  notion 
iabducting  her  to  Cuba  to  marry  her  be- 
:e  God  and  the  Coppolas— and  she  re- 
lied to  her  boyfriend,  with  whom  she 
d  a  son,  Enzo,  now  7.  Cage  settled 
wn  with  Christina  Fulton  and,  later,  a 
ling  model  from  Detroit  named  Kristen 
!ng  (to  whom  he  became  engaged  in 
?4).  But  every  so  often  the  former  lovers 
»uld  call  each  other  up  and  tease,  "Do 
u  still  want  to  marry  me?"  The  last  time 
tquette  phoned,  two  weeks  before  the  ac- 
il  wedding,  Cage  said  yes.  "I  was  ready 
make  that  official  commitment,"  he  tells 
i.  "I  knew  that  it  was  time." 
When  I  was  out  in  Los  Angeles,  I  heard 

KIITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


that  Arquctte  recently  got  pretty  steamed 
when  someone  referred  to  her  relationship 
as  "a  Hollywood  marriage."  She  reported- 
ly snapped,  "Don't  you  ever  say  that!"  She 
seems  like  a  woman  who  gives  as  good  as 
she  gets.  When  asked  at  last  year's  Cannes 
Film  Festival  what  she  and  her  husband 
do  when  they're  alone,  Arquette  sweetly 
growled,  "We  bark  at  each  other." 

Already  they  face  the  problem  of  when  to 
get  those  growls  in.  It's  easy  to  get  separat- 
ed given  all  that  real  estate.  And  then  there 
are  the  logistics  of  two  booming  careers. 
During  the  year  since  their  marriage,  Ar- 
quette has  made  four  movies  and  was  work- 
ing on  Nightwatch,  with  Nick  Nolte,  during 
the  time  this  article  was  being  prepared. 
Cage  will  be  occupied  with  Con  Air  and 
Face  Off  for  the  rest  of  this  year.  It  won't 
be  easy  to  reconcile  their  idiosyncratic  vibes. 

"She's  the  most  anti-money  person  I 
know,"  Cage  admits.  "I  mean,  I  have  a 
certain  lifestyle  and  she's  still  trying  to  get 
comfortable  with  it.  Not  that  she  doesn't 
like  the  idea  of  objects  or  stuff,  really.  She 
went  to  Harry  Winston's  [before  the  Os- 
cars] to  get  the  diamonds  all  the  girls  were 
wearing.  And  I  said  to  her,  'Honey,  if  I 
win  this  award,  the  diamonds  are  yours.' 
And  the  last  things  she  wants  are  dia- 
monds. But  I  could  tell  she  liked  the  idea, 
and  when  I  did  it,  I  said,  'Well,  we're  both 
taking  something  home.' " 

His  friends  were  taken  aback  when  the 
rebel  couple  actually  made  it  legal.  "I  mean, 
it  was  a  wild  thing,"  says  Carrey.  "But  I 
like  them  together.  They're  pretty  cool,  and 
she's  very  cool.  And,  you  know,  I've  been 
shocked  by  his  devotion.  He's  really  trying 
to  make  it  work  and  be  a  good  husband." 

Today,  on  his  left  hand,  next  to  his  wed- 
ding band,  he  wears  a  gold  ring  with  three 
colored  stones.  One  for  Enzo,  one  for 
Weston,  and  one  for  Patricia.  She  wears  a 
ring,  next  to  her  wedding  band,  from  an- 
cient Babylonia,  the  ring  of  Diana. 

About  a  week  after  I  saw  Cage  in  Cali- 
fornia he  called  me  back  East. 

"Lately  I've  been  really  thinking  a  lot 
about  the  notion  of  taking  my  inspiration 
from  more  organic  things.  I'm  getting 
into  this  mode  now  where  I  just  want  to 
be  as  pure  as  I  can  be  as  an  actor.  I'm 
not  as  interested  in  the  acrobatics.  I  can 
still  do  them  ...  but  I  really  want  to  get 
to  a  place  where  things  become  distilled. 
I  want  to  become  a  flower  in  a  movie.  I 
want  the  feeling  that  I  got  when  I  was  a 
child  and  I  walked  down  the  street  and 
discovered  sparkles  in  the  sidewalk  re- 
flecting in  the  sun  for  the  first  time. 

"I  want  to  find  a  way  to  give  it  just  as 
much  as  it  needs." 

And  a  prickly  pear  to  you,  too,  Nicko.  □ 


Film  al  Fresco 


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This  outdoor  film  festival 

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on  Sunday  nights,  beginning  July  14 

through  August  18. 

Doors  open  at  6:00  P.M.,  and  live 
music-western  swing,  mariachi-will 

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carte  menu  of  Italian-influenced 

cowboy  food. 

Scheduled  movies  include 

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and  Blazing  Saddles  August  18. 

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145 


A  Sei 


ason  in 


Parad 


isc» 


(Continued  from  page  114)  drawing  on  the 
Tuscan  tradition  of  embracing  artists  of 
every  stripe  and  nationality  while  rather 
forcefully  consigning  soldiers,  businessmen, 
and  others  of  more  mercantile  tempera- 
ments to  the  outer  boroughs.  (Legend  has 
it  that  the  great  conqueror  Hannibal, 
stampeding  through  the  area  on  his  ele- 
phants, couldn't  wangle  so  much  as  a  cup 
of  wine  from  outraged  natives.)  There  is, 
perhaps,  ample  justification  for  such  arro- 
gance. Descended  from  the  highly  civi- 
lized and  evolved  Etruscans,  most  locals 
feel  scant  loyalty  to  anyone  in  power- 
especially  to  anyone  in  power  in  Rome. 
For  decades,  the  Italian  Communist  Par- 
ty found  its  most  ardent  support  in  this 
region.  At  the  Festa  di  FUnita,  held  each 
broiling  summer  outside  Florence,  new 
comrades  used  to  be  seduced  with  giant 
red  posters  offering  two  bottles  of 

CHIANTI  FOR  THE  PRICE  OF  ONE. 

No  surprise  then  that  Paolo  Taviani 
claims  that  Tuscany  is  not  merely  the  cen- 
ter of  his  universe.  To  him,  this  gentle 
country—plump,  pampered,  subdued  by 
age  and  brushed  with  charm—/.?  the  uni- 
verse. A  complete  canvas.  The  globe!  "We 
were  born  15  minutes  from  the  birthplace 
of  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  40  minutes  from 
Florence— 


the  nut  of  the  world,"  the  director  declares 
without  a  trace  of  irony.  (Nuts  are  the  one 
staple  that  doesn't  grow  easily  in  the  re- 
gion's fertile  soil.)  But  what  would  Goethe 
say  about  the  transportation  of  his  lumber- 
ing German  saga? 

"I  don't  care  what  he  would  say,"  re- 
torts Taviani,  distinctly  ruffled.  "I  would 
be  content  if  he  liked  it,"  the  director 
continues,  his  mercurial  Tuscan  nature 
momentarily  relaxed.  "There  is  an  af- 
finita  between  us  and  Goethe.  His  idea 
of  the  forces  that  affect  man  and  the 
forces  of  nature  is  similar  to  ours.  Even 
though  we  have  the  blue  sky  and  he  has 
the  gray  sky." 

Not  too  far  from  where  they  shot,  in 
the  desolate  perfection  of  Pienza,  a  city 
rebuilt  by  a  15th-century  parvenu  Tuscan 
pope,  the  film  Tire  English  Patient,  due 
for  release  in  November,  is  also  taking 
shape.  The  title  is  a  purposeful  misnomer. 
In  the  movie,  a  wounded  non-English  pi- 
lot, played  by  Ralph  Fiennes  (of  Schind- 
ler's  List  and  Strange  Days),  is  cared  for 
by  an  equally  unhappy  French-Canadian 
nurse,  brought  to  life  by  Juliette  Binoche, 
best  known  to  Americans  for  Louis 
Malle's  film  Damage.  Like  Tuscany  itself, 
the  story  is  very  hard  to  explain,  as  the  di- 
rector, Anthony  Minghella,  is  the  first  to 
admit:  "The  whole  theme  of  our  film  is  to 
debate  the  issue  of  nationality,  internation- 
al ity,  and  identity.  People  who  think  they 
are  friends  have  that  notion  blurred  in  this 
movie:  instead  of  being  friends  they  be- 
come The  Englishman,  The  Italian,  The 
German." 

Minghella  understands  the  problem 
of  national  identity.  Born  of  Italian  par- 
ents on  the  Isle  of  Wight,  he  experi- 
enced some  anxiety  about  shooting  in 
Tuscany,  precisely  because  of  the  ten- 
dency of  all  the  beauty  to  overwhelm 
other,  human  forms.  "People  are  appro- 
priately nervous  about  it,"  says  Minghella. 
"But  I  realized  that  so  much  of  the  story  I 
was  filming  was  about  the  retreat  offered 
by  the  place  to  people  who  are  damaged.  I 
set  about  looking  for  monasteries— ruined 
monasteries,"  he  says.  The  one  he  picked, 
near  Pienza,  five  centuries  old  though  it 
was,  was  not  quite  ruined  enough  for 
his  taste.  "We  let  the  gardens  go 


LA  BELLEZZA 

Best  known  to  American 

audiences  for  her  work  in  the 

ate  Louis  Malle's  Damage. 

the  French  actress  Juliette 

Binoche  plays  a  nurse 

obsessed  with  an  injured 

WW  II  pilot  in  the 

upcoming  film  The 

English  Patient. 


wild  for  a  few  months  so  that  wher 
character  Juliette  Binoche  plays  comi 
the  monastery  it  has  an  unoccupied,  g 
to-seed  feeling. 

"We  tried  to  think  about  Italy  ; 
it  were  made  by  a  watercolorist- 
whole  look  of  it,  very  soft,  the  pal 
greens,  blues,  and  grays.  There  arc 
stressed  surfaces." 

The  British  director  is  amused  by 
number  of  his  fellow  moviemakers 
were  also  shooting  in  Tuscany.  It 
like  something  out  of  Fellini;  the  ci 
kept  bumping  into  one  another.  "I  tit 
it  was  either  serendipity  or  coinciden 
he  says  without  pausing  to  clarify 
difference. 


id  ah 


(6  P 


mi 


'I 


have  always  had  my  own  private  Q 


I 

ft  '- 

Off 


■ 


tj  ifflDt 


joins 

m I 


coming  to  Europe,"  notes  Bernardo 
tolucci,  explaining  his  ideas  about 
Tuscany  is  essential  to  his  film  Stea,: 
Beauty  "Like  the  Henry  James  here 
Isabel  Archer,  in  that  film  Jane  Can  f 
on  is  doing  Portrait  of  a  Lady.  Tht 
American  girls:  they  come  to  Europe;  ,; 
Italy,  with  such  strength  and  force  thai  ''' 
is  amazing.  And  that  beauty  of  that  T 
too,  which  is  kind  of  like  a  genetic 
with  them. 

"And  the  other  particularly  appealJ )l! 
thing  I  love  about  them  at  the  sa, 
time—which  makes  them  absolutely  fajf" 
nating— is  the  vulnerability  that  thti B' 
American  women  abroad  have.  The  M  * 
ture  is  absolutely  fascinating." 

On  the  set  of  Stealing  Beauty,  the.Ji  f 
rector  drove  his  own  car  and  ponded 
his  future.  The  film  is  very  small  and  rur1 
tively  low-budget  for  Bertolucci,  desj.4  "l 
the  elegant  foreign  cast  that  flockedJ  tt^ 
Tuscany  to  be  with  him.  The  fine  Fren  !k 
actor  Jean  Marais,  when  asked  why* '  ^ 
man  of  his  stature  and  ability  had  accei  "^ 
ed  such  a  tiny  part  in  the  film,  gallant  ie'w 
replied,  "If  Bertolucci  asks  me  to  bet 'M 
shadow  on  the  wall  every  day  in  tl*)'1 
movie,  I  will  gladly  accept." 

"Bernardo  was  anxious  about  comii  *ft 
back  to  Italy,"  concedes  Washington,  D.v  W 
psychoanalyst  Bruce  Sklarew,  a  longtin  ™ 
friend  of  the  director's  who  often  visrfF 
him  on  the  set.  "Because,  you  know,  11 
last  film,  Little  Buddha,  was  not  a  co# 
mercial  success.  So,  having  been  aw 
for  so  long,  he  wanted  to  come  back  qif s 
etly  and  slowly." 

But  Tuscany  had  a  role  in  the  creati 
of  the  film;  it  was,  in  fact,  in  the  Siene 
countryside  two  years  back  that  Bertolui  f! 
heard  a  fragment  of  conversation  at  a  vi  ' 
belonging  to  a  son  of  the  poet  Steph  Jfe 
Spender.  The  words  slipped  from  the  li 


K 


VANITY  FAIR /JULY  15 


I 


young  girl,  a  friend  of  friends.  An 
;rican  abroad. 
>he  was  visiting  Tuscany,  and  she  said, 

matter-of-factly,  that  she  had  only 
I  more  weeks  left  to  lose  her  virginity," 
rts  photographer  Brigitte  Lacombe, 
took  the  photographs  on  these  pages. 
d  Bernardo  was  absolutely  enchanted 

astonished.  And  that's  how  he  got 
dea  for  the  film  Stealing  Beauty. " 


One  summer  night— just  around  the 
time  that  Liv  Tyler,  who  plays  that  inex- 
perienced young  woman,  celebrated  her 
18th  birthday— Sklarew  and  some  crew 
members  were  peering  out  at  a  Brolio 
vineyard  under  a  very  bright  full  moon. 
The  effect  of  the  evening  was  extraordi- 
nary. The  field  was  black,  but  behind  it 
was  a  white  glow,  as  though  it  were 
bathed  in  snow. 


"There  was  some  difference  of  opinion 
among  some  of  us  about  what  caused 
that  light,"  Sklarew  recalls.  "The  place 
looked  enchanted.  Flooded  with  light  and 
so  strange.  It  was  like  Magritte." 

No  one  knew  what  was  happening. 

"It  turned  out  they'd  left  the  flood- 
lights on,"  says  Sklarew. 

In  Tuscany  nowadays,  they  are  never 
extinguished.  □ 


Dbertson 


ttinued  from  page  88)  responsibility." 
.t  the  time,  Robertson  also  was  busy 
ig  back   and   forth   to   Zaire.   The 
titry  was  in  a  shambles,  its  people 
en  from  poverty  to  abject  poverty  by 
abusive  and  corrupt  30 -year  rule  of 
right-wing    dictator    Mobutu    Sese 
3.  But  Zaire  was  the  world's  third- 
est  producer  of  industrial  diamonds 
Mobutu  had  offered  Robertson  an 
J-est  in  a  mine. 
I  think  Mobutu  gave  it  to  him,"  said 
ry  Covert,  a  former  director  of  the 
can  Development  Company.  "He  liked 
He  wanted  Pat  to  help  market  the  di- 
mds  around  the  world." 
rourtesy  of  Mobutu,  African  Devel- 
nent   also   received   concessions   for 
forest  logging,  farming,  and  other 
eavors.  Robertson  said  he  would  use 
fits  for  humanitarian  efforts  and  to 
3  Operation  Blessing,  CBN's  relief  or- 
ization.  But  the  company  was  his, 
the  books  too. 
pperation  Blessing  has  delivered  tons 
medical   supplies   and   foodstuffs  to 
ica  and  elsewhere  since  1978,  but  it  of- 
takes  an  original  approach.  During 
1994  Rwandan  refugee  crisis,  other 
ef  workers  watched  Robertson's  mis- 
laries   proselytizing   as   people   died, 
ley  were  laying  on  hands,  speaking  in 
gues,  and  holding  services  while  peo- 
were  dying  all  around,"  an  American 
worker  told  Time  magazine, 
ierman  Cohen,  who  worked  for  the 
te  Department's  Bureau  of  African 
airs  until   1993,  understands  the  hu- 
nitarian  needs  but  puzzles  over  why 
'one  would  go  into  Zaire  to  save  souls, 
s  not  a  great  place  to  push  evangelical 
iversions  and  that  sort  of  thing,"  Co- 
said.  "The  country  is  heavily  Chris- 
aized.  Evangelicals  have  done  an  excel- 
jt  job.  Not  much  more  value  added. 
a  good  place  to  make  money." 
Meanwhile,  Operation  Blessing  strug- 
:d  with  another  of  its  founder's  gran- 

(1ITY  FAIR/JULY  1996 


diose  plans:  growing  corn  on  a  failing 
50,000 -acre  farm  in  Zaire. 

"I  was  on  the  plane,  Mobutu's  plane, 
when  we  put  the  whole  thing  together," 
Covert  said.  "Pat  had  it  all  thought  out. 
The  idea  was  to  use  the  farm  as  a  start- 
ing point  to  feed  Africa.  That's  what  he 
wanted  to  do,  feed  Africa." 

The  diamond  operation  was  near  the 
frontier  town  of  Tshikapa,  on  a  tributary 
of  the  Congo  River  that  drains  out  of  the 
diamond  fields  of  nearby  Angola.  By  the 
time  Robertson  got  involved,  diamonds 
were  the  only  hard-money  commodity  in 
Zaire  that  Mobutu,  by  then  an  incredibly 
rich  man,  had  left  unplundered. 

Mobutu  had  been  a  Cold  War  friend 
at  the  time  that  the  C.I.A.  funded  covert 
operations  out  of  Zaire  into  Angola  (then 
a  Communist  state  supported  by  Cuban 
troops).  When  the  Cubans  pulled  out  and 
the  Cold  War  faded,  Mobutu's  "kleptoc- 
racy,"  as  critics  called  his  governing 
style,  became  too  much  for  the  American 
government.  The  U.S.  cut  him  off.  Other 
countries  joined  in,  making  him  an  inter- 
national pariah. 

"For  a  time  Mobutu  was  completely 
isolated,"  said  Makau  wa  Mutua,  former 
associate  director  of  the  human -rights 
program  at  Harvard  University  Law 
School.  "It  had  been  unacceptable  for 
any  important  American  to  openly  associ- 
ate with  Mobutu.  Robertson  was  the  first 
to  go  into  Zaire  and  give  Mobutu  re- 
spectability again." 

Back  in  Virginia  Beach,  according  to 
allegations  in  court  documents,  Robert- 
son astonished  Mark  Peterson  one  day  by 
rolling  uncut  African  diamonds  out  of 
their  bags,  saying  that  they  had  been 
"transported  to  the  United  States  duty- 
free via  his  private  aircraft." 

By  then,  the  company  had  launched  a 
jewelry  line.  Yafe  Creations,  which  of- 
fered, through  its  catalogue,  "fine  dia- 
mond jewelry  available  direct  from  the 
Holy  Land."  The  jewelry  supposedly  came 
from  the  National  Diamond  Center  of  Je- 
rusalem. In  actuality,  Peterson  charges, 
the  National  Diamond  Center  was  a  small 


New  York  company.  According  to  court 
documents,  Robertson  told  Peterson  he 
wanted  to  sell  his  uncut  diamonds  in  New 
York  "for  his  personal  gain." 

Relations  between  the  men  were  al- 
ready strained.  By  Peterson's  account,  he 
had  "openly  questioned  the  ethics  of 
Robertson's  behavior"  and  noted  that 
"there  may  be  legal  and  moral  consequen- 
ces." Peterson  was  fired  the  week  before 
Christmas  in  1992,  when  his  wife,  Andrea, 
was  in  the  ninth  month  of  pregnancy. 

Robertson  ran  through  one  more  presi- 
dent before  his  new  venture  collapsed  in 
1994  in  a  blaze  of  bad  press.  The  Norfolk 
Virginian-Pilot  broke  the  story  in  1993, 
raising  questions  about  KaloVita's  fi- 
nances and  methods  as  well  as  CBN's  ties 
to  the  operation.  Newsweek  and  ABC's 
PrimeTime  Live  followed  up  nationally. 

Robertson's  explanation  to  the  dread- 
ed press  ultimately  landed  him  in  court. 
During  the  Virginian-Pilot  investigation, 
Robertson  issued  a  press  release  blam- 
ing the  company's  huge  losses  on  his 
shipping  clerk  turned  president  and 
expressing  "shock"  that  Peterson  had 
spent  all  the  money  Robertson  had  in- 
vested, plunged  the  company  deeper 
in  debt,  and  caused  a  host  of  internal 
problems. 

Peterson  was  horrified  to  read  such  an 
assessment  in  the  local  newspaper.  For  a 
born-again  Christian  in  the  Tidewater 
country,  criticism  from  Robertson  carries 
a  brutal  sting.  For  the  next  two  years 
Robertson  and  Peterson  seesawed  be- 
tween friendship  and  enmity  as  Peterson 
tried  unsuccessfully  to  get  Robertson  to 
publicly  retract  his  statements  and  Rob- 
ertson tried  unsuccessfully  to  keep  Peter- 
son from  talking  to  the  media.  The  hostil- 
ities grew,  eventually  reaching  the  point 
where  Peterson  felt  that  Robertson's  body- 
guard, and  then  Robertson  himself,  had 
made  threats  on  his  life. 

In  May  1995,  Peterson  filed  his  suit 
for  defamation  against  Robertson  and 
CBN  and  brought  the  untidy  details  of 
their  relationship  and  KaloVita  into  pub- 
lic view.  But  the  merits  of  the  suit  itself 

147 


Robertson 


may  prove  almost  inconsequential  when 
weighed  against  a  public  replay  of  Rob- 
ertson's most  embarrassing  business  deal. 
Robertson  has  won  early  battles  to  keep 
CBN's  financial  ledgers  under  court  seal. 
But  plenty  is  in  the  record  already. 

For  Robertson,  one  of  the  more  awk- 
ward court  documents  is  a  transcript  of  a 
telephone  conversation  between  him  and 
Peterson's  wife,  Andrea,  who  was  taping 
the  conversation. 

The  transcript  reveals  a  highly  emo- 
tional Robertson,  a  man  with  an  angry 
fear  of  the  media  and  an  expectation  that 
others  will  protect  him  at  great  cost  to 
themselves. 

ANDREA  Peterson:  I  had  a  personal  feeling 
toward  you  that  was  betrayed  and  shot 
down  and  stuck  in  the  mud.  ...  I  want  to 
know  why  it  is  so  imperative  to  ruin  little 
people  like  us. 

Robertson:  Andrea,  don't  you  understand 
that  I  am  a  prominent  religious  figure  that 
the  left-wing  media  has  been  trying  for 
years  to  hurt,  and  don't  you  realize  that  you 
and  Mark  have  just  become  torpedoes  in 
their  hand,  launched  right  straight  at  me? 

Moments  later  Mrs.  Peterson  tried 
again  to  make  the  point  that  her  husband 
had  been  damaged  within  their  own  com- 
munity. Robertson  quickly  cut  her  off. 

Peterson:  There  was  a  story  published  in 
77?^  Virginian-Pilot,  Pat,  that  stated  .  .  . 
Robertson:  That's  not  America  .  .  . 

Mrs.  Peterson  said  to  Robertson,  "I've 
told  Mark  we  will  not  be  held  account- 
able for  bringing  an  anointed  man  down. 
It's  not  in  our,  it's  not  in  my  soul."  But 
the  transcript  also  contains  remarks  that 
the  Petersons  took  as  a  threat  on  Mark 
Peterson's  life. 

These  remarks  were  part  of  a  discus- 
sion of  an  earlier  conversation  Robertson 
had  with  Peterson's  sister,  Pam.  Pam  had 
described  her  brother  as  "a  wild  stallion 
without  a  bit"  in  his  mouth.  Andrea  Pe- 
terson prodded  Robertson  to  repeat  what 
he  had  said  in  reply.  Robertson  obliged: 

.  .  .  and  horses  who  break  their  legs  get  put 
down.  'Cause  I've  had  to  do  that  to  a 
horse  that  got  his  leg  broken,  and  that  is 
an  analogy  about  horses,  and  she's  the  one 
that  said  he  was  a  wild  ...  his  own  sister 
said  he  was  a  wild  stallion. 

When  Andrea  Peterson  persisted,  ask- 
ing Robertson  what  he  had  meant,  he 
continued: 

Thai's  what  might  happen,  I  said.  I  uh— 

148 


if— uh,  if  a  stallion  bites  and  kicks  he  might 
break  his  leg.  .  .  .  When  a  horse  breaks  his 
leg.  they  put  him  to  sleep.  This  is  a  horse 
analogy.  I  meant  nothing  about  Mark  but— 
but— wild  stallions  can  hurt  themselves. 
They  run  over  cliffs. 

Robertson  denied  making  any  threats. 
"I  made  no  threat  against  the  life  or 
physical  safety  of  Mark  or  Andrea  Peter- 
son, nor  did  I  intend  to  make  such  a 
threat,"  he  said  in  his  affidavit. 

But  Peterson  regarded  Robertson's  re- 
mark as  especially  ominous  because  of 
the  religious  leader's  influence  on  oth- 
ers. Peterson's  sister,  Pam,  explained  in 
her  affidavit: 

Mark  was  afraid  because  Dr.  Robertson 
could  again  at  any  time  lose  emotional 
control  and  make  the  same  kinds  of  state- 
ments in  the  presence  of  some  of  his  reli- 
gious followers.  ...  He  believed  that  there 
were  persons  who  were  zealous  enough  in 
their  allegiance  to  Dr.  Robertson  that  they 
would  interpret  these  kinds  of  remarks  .  .  . 
as  a  sign  of  approval  for  them  to  harm 
Mark  or  his  family. 

Peterson  also  claims  in  the  suit  that  he 
was  threatened  in  a  1993  telephone  call 
from  the  chief  of  security  at  CBN,  Les 
Naghiu,  a  man  also  described  as  Robert- 
son's personal  bodyguard. 

"The  creek  is  deep  and  I  swim  better 
than  you,"  Naghiu  said,  according  to 
Peterson's  allegation.  "So  watch  who  you 
accuse."  (Naghiu  calls  the  accusation 
"malarkey.") 

If  the  case  ever  goes  to  trial,  it  prom- 
ises to  be  explosive  in  other  ways.  Peter- 
son makes  allegations  of  several  in- 
stances where  CBN's  resources  were 
commingled  with  those  of  American 
Sales.  CBN  has  repeatedly  denied  com- 
mingling funds  or  services,  but,  with  the 
I.R.S.  looking  over  CBN's  tax-exempt 
shoulder,  the  issue  is  supersensitive. 

Peterson  also  accused  Robertson  of 
making  racist  and  ethnic  slurs  in  their 
private  conversations.  In  his  affidavit, 
Peterson  described  one  alleged  incident 
in  which  he  told  Robertson  about  some 
potential  Middle  Eastern  investors.  Rob- 
ertson allegedly  "banged  his  fist  on  the 
table  and  said:  'You  can  never  trust  the 
Arabs.  Those  sand  niggers  are  worse 
than  the  Jews,  you  just  can't  trust  them 
with  money.'" 

In  his  own  affidavit  Robertson  denied 
all  of  Peterson's  charges  and  said  that 
Peterson's  "handling  of  corporate  funds 
and  records  was  questionable,  if  not  out- 
right dishonest." 

Robertson  had  reason  to  be  concerned 
about  the  financial  condition  of  KaloVita. 
By  1993  he  had  invested  $2.5  million  of 


his  own  money  to  save  the  company 
took  it  over  from  CBN.  He  subsequer 
repaid  CBN  its  cash  investment. 

In  his  conversation  with  Andrea  Pe 
son,  Robertson  sounded  almost  hyster  \ 
about  his  losses.  "This  company  has  b 
the  most  awful  nightmare  of  my  life," 
told  her.  "I'm  a  busy  guy  and  this  is  a  T 
tie  sideline.   I  would— I  didn't  thir' 
amounted  to  a  whole  lot  and  the  n 
thing  you  know  it  has  cost  me  so  m;  t 
millions  of  dollars,  I— I  don't  even  w*]L. 
to  talk  about  it.   It  is  just— it  has  jl 
drained  every  cent  I've  got." 

Repeatedly,  Robertson  tried  to  m; '..'.. 
the  point  that  he  did  not  know  what  \  i 
going   on   inside   American   Sales,    i  r 
Mrs.   Peterson  contradicted  him:   "I  [ 
body  spends  your  money.  You  havecL. 
O.K.  everything." 

Ironically,  The  Virginian-Pilot's  invet    - 

gation  was  conducted  by  an  evana    . 

ical  Christian  and  graduate  of  Robo  .  , 

son's  Regent  University  communicatii 

school.    The    assault    on    the    repor:  ,t 

Mark  O'Keefe,  became  vicious.  A  IUim 

ertson   aide   told   him    he   had    turn 

"from  good  to  evil."  Friends  say  he  \ 

i  ipp  a 
spurned   and   ostracized.   O'Keefe  \\  { 

told   that   his   photo   was   kept   at 

Founder's  Inn  with  instructions  tha 

he  was  spotted  the  security  force  was 

be  called  immediately. 

O'Keefe  has  since  left  Norfolk  ;, 

,      -JSSffi 

works  as  the  religion  reporter  at  the  P<  , 
land  Oregonian.  He  is  reluctant  to  II  . 
about  his  experience  beyond  acknowle., 
ing  that  Robertson  and  his  people  p; 
hardball.  In  his  conversation  with  Andi 
Peterson,  an  angry  Robertson  repeated  j 
returned  to  "that  awful  O'Keefe  pers( 
and  the  "wicked  reporter."  Robertson 
came  even  more  emotional  when 
talked  about  Michael  Isikoff,  the  Ne 
week  reporter  investigating  KaloVita 

"The  man  named  Mike  Isikoff  f 
Newsweek  who  interviewed  Mark 
is  one  of  the  most  vicious  anti-Christ: 
bigots  in  the  entire  world.   He  is 
solutely  unbalanced  and  he  is— uh— ei: 
tionally  in  my  opinion  uh— uh— stunt 
but  nevertheless  he's  the  guy  who  is  w 
ing  the  piece." 

Four  days  after  PrimeTime  Live  w 
ahead  with  its  broadcast,  Robertson 
himself  of  KaloVita,  selling  it  to  a  Dal 
based  cosmetics  firm  for  one  dollar 
has  since  gone  into  bankruptcy. 

The  African  Development  Comp; 
pulled  out  of  the   diamond   mine, 
farm,  and  Zaire  in  the  fall  of  1995  aft* 
spurt  of  publicity  and  rumors  that  R 
ertson's  relations  with  his  old  friend 
dictator  had  soured.  Others  with  inten 


'ill 


VANITY  FAIR /JULY 


ll 


KD  lit 

Med 


»Mi 

Mid 


MllMi 

I 

Kezm 
Hinger. 
Siough 

llcad, 

i\ 

ones 


«VS; 


obertson 


'aire  said  the  place  had  become  hope- 
Mobutu  had  milked  the  country  dry 
the  demands  for  bribes  had  become 
lerable  even  by  African  standards, 
lybody  involved  in  the  diamond  busi- 
5  over  there  is  in  corruption  up  to 
r  ears,"  said  Robert  Oakley,  former 
.  ambassador  to  Zaire. 
Robertson  refused  to  discuss  his  rela- 
iship  with  Mobutu  or  the  mine.  Oth- 
j  didn't. 

'It's  outrageous,"  said  Janet  Fleisch- 
i,  director  of  the  Washington  office  of 
man  Rights  Watch/ Africa,  the  largest 
.-based  human-rights  organization, 
obutu  has  presided  over  the  destruction 
lis  people  and  made  himself  an  extraor- 
arily  rich  man  in  the  process.  One  won- 
s  what  kind  of  business  dealings  were 
Dived,  what  kind  of  profits  were  in- 
/ed,  what  kind  of  covers  were  involved, 
|;ther  it  was  a  religious  cover." 
[Tie  African  Development  Company  has 
ved  on  to  other  frontiers.  CBN's  Gene 
'pp  said  the  company  is  pursuing  min- 
',  logging,  agriculture,  transportation, 
1  power  generation  in  other  countries, 
luding  Russia,  Tanzania,  Kenya,  and 
mond-rich  Angola. 

Having  abandoned  the  farm,  Operation 
'ssing  turned  its  efforts  to  another 
bertson  brainchild:  the  $20  million  con- 
sion  of  an  old  L-1011  jetliner  into  a  fly- 
hospital. 

'"This  has  never  been  done  before  ...  a 
ing  hospital  that  will  revolutionize  med- 
1  relief— and  save  lives,"  Robertson 
Dte  in  a  fund-raising  letter.  "Can  I  count 
your  help?" 

)n  Tlie  700  Club,  Robertson  looks 
like  an  aging  munchkin,  cheeks 
>y,  eyes  squinting  amid  wrinkle  lines 
en  he  smiles.  Cuff  links  and  highly 
lished  cowboy  boots  set  off  his  well- 
lored,  conservative  suits.  He  shares 
I  show  with  Terry  Meeuwsen,  a  for- 
:r  Miss  America,  and  his  longtime 
ekick,  Ben  Kinchlow,  a  tall  minister 
th  snow-white  hair.  The  way  Robert- 
i  hunches  in  his  chair  makes  him  look 
prter  than  he  is.  It  is  as  if  age  were 
iieezing  him  square.  When  he  was 
unger,  he  was  anchorman -handsome, 
hough  his  voice  has  always  lacked  nor- 
il  cadences,  its  accent  undefined,  not 
ite  a  Virginia  drawl.  Sometimes,  in  ex- 
ement,  he  squeaks.  It  adds  to  his  ap- 
al.  But  Robertson's  bubbling  cheerful- 
ss  belies  his  message. 
I  just  grieve  to  see  this  happening 

-JIT  Y  FAIR /JULY  1996 


and  we  need  to  pray  for  them,"  Robert- 
son said  after  thousands  lost  their  homes 
and  land  during  the  great  Mississippi 
flood  of  1993.  "But  the  Bible  makes  it 
very  clear:  when  you  take  God  out  of 
your  life,  and  the  Supreme  Court  clearly 
mandated  God  out  .  .  .  and  now  we  have 
a  president  who  comes  and  appoints  les- 
bians in  positions  of  high  office.  .  .  .  The 
Bible  says  that  the  blood  of  the  innocents 
will  cry  out  against  us  and  the  land  will 
have  to  be  cleansed  ..." 

Off  the  set  the  eccentric  grandfather 
quickly  becomes  a  tough  but  often  thin- 
skinned  businessman.  Ed  Rollins  once 
tested  the  thin  skin.  On  one  of  Rollins's 
visits  to  Virginia  Beach,  a  hurricane  was 
brewing  off  the  coast.  By  this  time, 
Robertson's  relationship  with  hurricanes 
had  become  legendary.  In  1985,  as  the 
700  Club  camera  zoomed  in,  Robertson 
had  clenched  his  eyes  in  prayer  and  com- 
manded in  God's  name  that  a  hurricane 
turn  away  from  CBN.  It  did. 

The  hype  afterward  was  unrelenting- 
press  releases,  self-congratulatory  ac- 
counts on  The  700  Club.  Robertson  even 
said  that  his  success  was  instrumental, 
along  with  God's  request,  of  course,  in 
persuading  him  to  run  for  president.  "I 
felt  that  if  I  couldn't  move  a  hurricane," 
he  said,  "I  could  hardly  move  a  nation." 

Rollins  had  never  required  such  a  show 
of  strength  from  a  candidate.  Now,  as  the 
skies  darkened,  he  watched  as  workmen 
boxed  up  religious  sculptures  on  the  CBN 
grounds.  Thought  you  could  stop  these 
things,  Rollins  said  gingerly  to  Robert- 
son. "A  little  pragmatism  never  hurt," 
Robertson  replied. 

Not  every  questioner  gets  off  so  easily. 
Another  well-known  Republican  campaign 
specialist  jokingly  asked  Robertson,  at 
their  first  meeting,  to  heal  one  of  his  nag- 
ging ailments.  It  was  their  last  meeting. 

"Pat  is  humorless,"  says  Mel  White,  a 
former  ghostwriter  for  Robertson  and 
Jerry  Falwell.  "He's  not  like  Falwell. 
Falwell  doesn't  take  himself  too  serious- 
ly. Falwell  thinks  it's  all  a  lark.  Pat  is  to- 
tally self-absorbed.  He  really  sees  him- 
self as  God's  chosen  person  to  purge  the 
nation  of  its  sin." 

On  the  night  of  the  New  York  prima- 
ry Pat  Robertson  cut  into  the  news 
segment  of  The  700  Club  with  a  live  re- 
port that  his  man,  Bob  Dole,  led  the 
race  comfortably.  Then  the  show  cut 
back  to  one  of  its  staples— three  earth- 
quakes that  day.  Low-grade  rumbles  ig- 
nored by  the  mainstream  media  become 
a  CBN  exclusive.  Disasters  are  a  main- 
stay.   Earthquakes,    hurricanes,    floods, 


plagues,  pestilences.  Signs  of  the  times. 
Signs  of  the  End  Times. 

Robertson's  preoccupation  with  the 
end  of  the  world  dates  back  to  his  early 
born -again  days  at  a  small  New  York 
Bible  school.  "I  got  an  A-plus  on  my 
prophecy  chart,"  he  has  said  proudly,  and 
he's  been  prophesying  ever  since. 

Dating  the  apocalypse  has  been  down- 
right ruinous  to  reputations.  A  prophet 
named  Hans  Hut  predicted  it  would  oc- 
cur on  Pentecost  in  1528.  It  didn't,  but 
Hut  had  gathered  together  144,000  saint- 
ly followers  for  the  occasion.  He  died  in 
jail  for  the  letdown  he  caused.  The  result 
is  not  always  so  dire.  A  Baptist  minister, 
William  Miller,  received  wide  attention 
and  many  followers  when  he  decreed  that 
the  end  of  the  world  would  come  by 
March  21,  1844,  a  date  which  became 
known  as  the  First  Disappointment.  The 
second  was  October  22,  1844,  and  cost 
Miller  all  but  a  handful  of  the  faithful, 
those  who  hadn't  sold  all  their  worldly 
goods.  Today  he  is  known  as  the  founder 
of  the  Seventh  Day  Adventist  Church, 
which  has  5.5  million  members. 

Still,  few  modern  religious  groups  can 
match  the  Jehovah's  Witnesses.  Leaders 
of  the  Witnesses  have  predicted  the  end 
of  the  world  in  1874,  1878,  1881,  1910, 
1914,  1918,  1925,  1975,  and  1984,  and  the 
flock  is  still  knocking  on  doors. 

Early  in  his  career,  Robertson  was  de- 
fensive about  the  whole  business.  "I  don't 
want  to  appear  like  a  mystical  doomsday 
fortune-teller,"  he  wrote  in  a  newsletter 
20  years  ago.  "I'm  not.  But  look  at  the 
facts.  Bible  prophecies  are  no  longer 
mere  predictions." 

A  short  time  later  he  determined  that 
he  would  be  alive  for  the  end.  He  further 
concluded  that  the  Antichrist,  who  would 
lead  the  forces  of  evil,  also  was  "alive  to- 
day, approximately  27  years  old,"  and 
was  "being  groomed  to  be  the  Satanic 
messiah."  This  would  put  the  arch-enemy 
in  his  mid- 40s  now,  the  middle  of  the 
baby  boom  being  a  devilishly  shrewd 
place  to  hide. 

Robertson  ventured  into  the  mine- 
field of  doomsday  dates  on  New  Year's 
Day  1980  at  a  prayer  meeting  of  CBN 
staff  members.  Gerard  Straub,  who  lat- 
er wrote  the  book  Salvation  for  Sale, 
tape-recorded  the  session.  "Playtime  is 
over,"  Robertson  told  his  troops,  and 
he  pegged  the  date  at  1982.  When 
that  passed,  he  slid  it  to  1984.  When  that 
passed,  he  said  what  many  a  prophet 
has  concluded  before  him:  "We  have  to 
be  careful  with  dates."  But  Robertson 
is  now  growing  bolder  again.  In  1994 
he    said    it   would    happen    within    six 

149 


mam 


Robertson 


years.  Last  year  he  said  five.  This  year 
he  has  said  four.  The  year  2000  seems 
the  date  of  choice. 

As  he  grows  older,  Robertson  also  has 
taken  on  some  of  the  Old  Testament 
God's  more  wrathful  attributes.  Last  year 
he  published  Tl\e  End  of  the  Age,  which 
Gene  Kapp  had  billed  before  publication 
as  "examining  the  biblical  prophecies. 
Where  are  we  in  the  time  line?"  It  did 
that,  all  right:  the  end,  as  expected,  be- 
gins in  2000  and  climaxes,  after  the  bibli- 
cal seven  years  of  the  Antichrist,  in  2007. 

Robertson  decided— after  he  had  com- 
pleted the  first  chapter,  he  said— to  write 
the  tale  as  fiction,  his  first  novel.  Most 
saw  this  as  another  fig  leaf  for  Reed  and 
the  Christian  Coalition:  the  end  of  the 
world  is  not  a  strong  plank  in  a  political 
platform. 

On  his  book  tour  Robertson  enthused 
about  what  he  considers  his  best  public 
account  of  his  vision.  He  calls  the  book  a 
popularized  version  of  the  Book  of  Reve- 
lation, the  last  book  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, which  lays  out  the  final  events.  "I 
really  wasn't  setting  out  to  write  fiction," 
he  told  Charlie  Rose.  "It's  a  true  story." 

The  end  of  the  world  would  seem  to 
settle  all  grudges  sufficiently.  Neverthe- 
less, Robertson  manages  to  kick  a  few 
people  on  their  way  down.  The  precipitat- 
ing event— a  huge  meteor  hurled  by  an- 
gels—occurs just  off  the  coast  of  Califor- 
nia, quickly  getting  rid  of  those  occultist 
New  Agers,  demonic  Hollywood  people, 
and,  of  course,  the  gays  in  San  Francisco. 
The  media  get  their  whack  as  they  go  un- 
der ("It  was  one  of  Washington's  dirtiest 
little  secrets  .  .  .  [The  Washington)  Post 
was  so  powerful  that  it  routinely  operated 
above  the  law").  Presidents  are  killed  by 
cobras  provided  by  Satanic  Hindu  Shivas 
who  have  been  training  the  Antichrist.  A 
Christian  Resistance  forms  in  New  Mexi- 
co under  a  rather  familiar  former  preach- 
er who  did  a  lot  of  work  on  television 
(and  owns  a  magnificent  house  with  a  sat- 
ellite-transmission dish);  the  unsaved  citi- 
zenry spend  months  in  horrible  pain;  two 
billion  people  are  killed;  more  die  in  a 
neutron -bomb  explosion  in  Israel;  and,  fi- 
nally, with  the  Lord's  victory  assured,  the 
saved  rise  into  the  air  to  meet  Him  while 
the  others  make  a  swift  and  final  descent. 

The  Second  Coming  is  an  article  of 
faith  in  all  Christian  denominations. 
Most  mainstream  churches,  however, 
view  the  event  and  the  Book  of  Revela- 
tion in  a  more  allegorical  vein.  These 
churches,  using  common  sense  and  heed- 


ing a  holy  warning,  also  back  away  from 
picking  dates.  You  can't  have  Hans  Huts 
and  Pat  Robertsons  repeatedly  revving 
up  the  masses  for  disappointments  and 
expect  to  keep  any  institutional  continu- 
ity going,  surely  not  for  2,000  years,  as 
the  Catholics  have  done.  As  for  the  holy 
warning,  Jesus  cautioned  future  prognos- 
ticators  about  predictions:  "But  of  that 
day  and  hour  knoweth  no  man,  no,  not 
the  angels  of  heaven,  but  my  Father 
only."  Robertson  floats  by  that  one. 
"The  Bible  tells  us  to  be  careful  with 
dates,"  he  says,  and  marches  to  the 
blackboard  to  begin  the  toting. 

The  Book  of  Revelation,  written  in  the 
first  century  a.d.,  describes  a  sequence  of 
signs  and  events  that  will  transpire  before 
Christ's  return.  Unfortunately  for  later 
generations,  it  was  written  in  a  kind  of 
poetic  code  in  order  to  hide  its  real 
meaning  from  the  Romans. 

First-century  Christians  suffered  terri- 
ble persecution,  including  the  sacking  of 
Jerusalem  by  Roman  armies  in  the  year 
70.  Because  of  these  ordeals  and  Christ's 
promise  to  return,  they  expected  him  back 
in  their  time.  By  the  end  of  the  first  centu- 
ry, however,  despite  repeated  predictions, 
Jesus  had  been  gone  70  years.  The  faithful 
had  become  dispirited  and  began  to  rele- 
gate Revelation  to  the  safer  province  of 
symbolism  and,  much  later,  the  catechism. 

In  the  sixth  century.  Saint  Augustine, 
the  church's  first  great  scholar  and  the 
man  who  became  known  as  the  father  of 
Christian  theology,  concluded  that  the 
Book  of  Revelation  should  be  read  only 
as  allegory.  Most  modern  theologians 
agree,  seeing  Revelation  as  a  vividly 
imaginative  mix  of  history,  current  events, 
and  reflections  of  those  early  expecta- 
tions of  an  imminent  return.  But  it  is  the 
author's  code  and  signs  that  the  prophe- 
cy seekers,  including  Robertson,  have 
been  trying  to  crack  ever  since. 

The  most  significant  event  to  modern 
apocalyptic  thinking  was  the  1948  return  of 
the  Jews  to  Israel,  a  requirement  for 
Christ's  return.  This  set  off  an  avalanche  of 
prophetic  visions,  including  Robertson's. 

To  Robertson,  the  advent  of  television 
also  fulfills  a  prophecy— and  has  made 
him,  through  CBN,  an  anointed  one.  Je- 
sus, according  to  Revelation,  will  not  re- 
turn until  His  word  "is  spread  to  the  ends 
of  the  earth."  Nothing  could  do  that  bet- 
ter than  satellite  TV,  and  The  700  Club  is 
now  seen  in  70  countries. 

Some  read  the  wording  of  another 
prophecy— "There  would  no  flesh  be 
saved"— as  predicting  the  advent  of  nu- 
clear weapons.  This  one  has  been  tricky 
for  Robertson.  He  widely  predicted  the 


end  would  come  in  a  nuclear  holocau 
until  he  ran  for  president.  That  wasn 
good  plank  for  a  political  platform,  eit!  » 
So  he  changed  his  mind.  But  he  retur 
to  the  use  of  neutron  weapons— which  T  l 
stroy  life  but  not  property— in  his  novel  ^0 

Robertson's  apocalyptic  visions  troi  I 
many  people  deeply,  primarily  becaust  T  v 
his  political  influence.  "Somebody  11  toto 
Bob  Dole,  essentially  he's  a  secular,"  si  I 
James  Tabor,  a  University  of  North  Op) L 
olina  biblical  scholar.  "He  might  beli  til 
the  Bible,  but  he's  not  sitting  there  poriW011 
over  the  Book  of  Revelation  to  figure  ii  M 
the  Gulf  War.  George  Bush  wasn't,  i'r> 
ther.  But  I  guarantee  you  Pat  Robert:  t^1' 
would.  He  says,  'Well,  this  must  be  v/4  ^ 
is  prophesied.'  It's  scary  that  anybody  *-' 
any  position  of  power  would  be  reado  F- 
that  stuff,  believing  that  maybe  tlifeL 
would  tip  the  hand  a  little  bit,  be  an  «f 
strument  of  God." 

Tabor  says  that  any  kind  of  activity^  H°' 
the  Middle  East  starts  the  prophet ii 
wheels  spinning.  "These  people  begins  * 
just  jump  out  of  their  skins,"  he  sal  tow 
"It's  like  bees  buzzing." 

To  understand  the  meaning  of  the  life 
lical  text,  the  words  must  be  read  in  ctf  ft"Ri 
text,  says  Father  Richard  P.  McBrienrt  ^  hi 
distinguished  Catholic  theologian  and  ii  I 
mer  head  of  the  theology  department!  on!  i 
Notre  Dame.  "You  don't  read  the  tee  Wfi 
as  if  they  came  out  in  The  New  W)  s  w 
Times  yesterday,"  McBrien  says.  "Yi  i*k 
have  to  read  them  in  contemporary  co  The  ^ 
text.  You  also  have  to  read  them  remetf  unfa 
bering  that  what  is  printed  on  the  comr  Its* 
page  has  a  different  context  than  whaW  jIn 
printed  on  the  editorial  page.  The  Bibltl* <: 
poetry  and  comics  and  editorials—  lotssi  it  to 
editorials  and  news  and  statistics— lots  si  m  Lt 
numbers.  Only  scholars  can  figure  till  mince 
out,  and  they  can  spend  a  lifetime  owl'tu 
and  not  finish." 

The  prophecy  seekers  are  stuck  in  II I  a  Ii 
Dark  Ages,  McBrien  says,  because  thMdf 
insist  on  reading  the  words  literally.  Tllsa1! 
rigidity  rules  out  answers,  he  says,  addii  « 
sardonically,  "If  you're  a  Fundamental  I' « la 
you're  not  a  scholar." 

Robertson  has  an  answer  to  smai  He  t 
alecky  Catholic  thinkers  and  Saint  Aug'  m'sc. 
tine  too.  I  >Q mo 

"The  silly  so-called  intellectuals  of  a<*  *•; 
demia  will  find  themselves  first  irrelevef  Bon 
and  then  expendable  when  the  real  pow  W  t 
begins  to  operate,"  he  has  exclaims  Jit 
Meanwhile,  Robertson  devotes  a  week  '  *plit 
700  Club  shows  each  spring  to  the  co  I  fc 
ing  end:  Signs  of  the  Times  week,  whi 
he  runs  telethon-style.  It's  the  clul 
biggest  moneymaker. 

"It  does  seem  an  inconsistency,  doesi 


150 


VANITY  FAIR /JULY  1! 


(.(. 


(.(. 


says  McBrien.  "It's  all  coming  to  an 
,  and  there's  that  800  number  running 
oss  the  bottom  of  the  screen." 

1  or  Marion  G.  "Pat"  Robertson,  it  had 

been  one  bad  weekend.  His  plane  had 
its  hydraulics  shortly  after  takeoff 
m  Norfolk,  and  at  the  Washington 
ton  hotel,  where  the  Christian  Coalition 
i  holding  its  fourth  annual  Road  to 

tory  Conference,  PrimeTime  Live  had 
ibushed"  him  in  the  lobby.  Still,  as  he 
ked  out  over  the  crowd  at  the  gala  din- 
li,  he  felt  good.  The  1994  congressional 
;tions  were  only  weeks  away  and  Pat 
bertson  was  one  of  the  few  people  in 
ishington  who  believed  the  Republicans 
uld  take  Congress  for  the  first  time  in 

years.  The  young  faces 
king  up  at  him  from  their 
|nquet  tables  were  the 
Ires  that  would  do  the  job. 
He  told  them  what  they 
nted  to  hear. 

"Although  we  have  no  in- 
Ition  of  advocating  bizarre 
sitions  which  will  lose 
ictions,  let  me  make  this 
iar,"  Robertson  proclaimed. 
j/e  have  no  intention  of 
iTendering  our  deeply  held 
wal  stands  just  to  please 
lhandful  of  timid  moder- 
:s  who  don't  stand  for 
ything." 

|The  3,000  delegates  rose, 
jndering  their  approval. 
It  is  self-revealing  remarks 
e  this  that  trouble  Robert- 
as critics  most.  He  does 
|ce  bizarre  positions.  Nor- 
in  Lear,  the  Hollywood 
oducer  and  political  ac- 
[ist,  said  Robertson  reminds 
ti  of  an  old  comedy  routine.  "When  he 
|t  a  laugh,"  Lear  said,  "Milton  Berle 
puld  put  up  his  hand  to  say,  'Stop!'  But 
;  other  hand  below  it  was  motioning, 
ome  on,  come  on.'  Robertson,  on  the 
le  hand,  is  saying,  'I  never  said  that,' 
d  on  the  other,  'Listen  to  me.'" 
He  often  gets  away  with  it.  Washing- 
n's  conventional  wisdom  has  Robert- 
n  moderating,  thanks  to  Ralph  Reed's 
ver-ending  spin.  But  ask  political  op- 
ators  if  they  have  watched  The  700 
\ub  lately  and  the  answer  is  a  blank 
^re.  "Narrowcasting,"  Mel  White  calls 
e  phenomenon.  Given  the  information 
^plosion  of  cable  television,  he  says, 
fou  can  narrowcast  and  have  no  danger 
i  being  seen  by  your  enemies,  because 
ily  your  friends  are  watching." 

People  for  the  American  Way,  which 

iNITY  FAIR /JULY  1996 


has  taped  700  Club  broadcasts  since  1980, 
was  instrumental  in  catching  Robertson  in 
some  embarrassing  episodes.  During  his 
presidential  campaign,  the  press  printed 
that  Robertson  had  once  said  that  only 
Christians  and  Jews  should  be  allowed  to 
hold  public  office.  He  angrily  denied  it. 
Out  came  a  1985  videotape.  A  decade  lat- 
er Robertson  rarely  fires  shots  at  the  bad 
guys  on  the  Potomac  without  saving  a 
slug  for  the  People  for  the  American  Way. 
When  the  GO. P.  took  control  of  Con- 
gress shortly  after  the  gala,  44  of  the  52 
new  Republicans  in  the  House  were  sup- 
ported by  pro-life  groups  and  the  Christian 
Coalition.  The  group  also  had  established 
functioning  control  of  the  Republican 
Party  apparatus  in  at  least  31   states. 


i 


ii 


The  feminist  agenda 

wrote  Robertson, 
. .  encourages  women 

to  leave  their 
husbands,  kill  their 

children,  and 
become  lesbians. 


Ralph  Reed  immediately  began  his  spin. 
The  American  people  had  taken  a  signifi- 
cant and  lasting  turn  rightward— "a  conser- 
vative tidal  wave,"  he  called  the  election. 

"Let  me  say  this  to  our  critics  and  the 
pundits,  to  the  prognosticators,  to  those 
in  the  media  who  have  tried  to  demonize 
us,  stereotype  us,  and  silence  us,"  Reed 
taunted.  "You  better  get  used  to  us  for  a 
long,  long  time." 

Few  poked  holes  in  the  logic.  Taking 
Congress  for  the  first  time  in  four  decades 
was  one  of  the  stunning  events  in  modern 
American  political  history.  But  was  the 
vaunted  landslide  of  1994  the  overwhelm- 
ing mandate  that  the  Republicans  and 
Reed  quickly  billed  it?  Many  of  the  new 
Republicans  had  won  by  the  slenderest 
margin -the  kind  that  Reed's  hard-nosed 
troops  can  produce  in  a  low-turnout  elec- 


tion but  that  often  disappears  in  the  heav- 
ier voting  of  a  presidential  election.  "The 
people  who  get  to  the  podium  first  define 
an  election,"  says  Peter  Hart,  a  Demo- 
cratic pollster.  "They  got  to  the  podium 
first,  and  it  has  become  a  landslide,  an 
historic  sea  change  in  American  politics." 
Almost  everybody  fell  for  it,  even 
Democratic  leaders,  who  moped  around 
so  long  that  their  people  began  crawling 
into  the  body  bags  before  they  were  dead. 
One  after  another  longtime  Democrat  re- 
tired, making  the  G.O.P's  tough  1996  bat- 
tle easier.  It  was  a  spectacularly  successful 
con  job.  But  bluff  and  deception  have 
been  part  of  Reed's  game  since  the  stealth 
days.  The  size  of  his  army— Reed  claims 
1.7  million— may  be  the  biggest  deception. 
The  number  is  fuzzy,  at  best. 
The  Coalition  circulates  only 
310,000  copies  of  its  mag- 
azine, Christian  American. 
Spokesman  Mike  Russell 
says  the  larger  number  is 
based  on  a  computerized 
mailing  list  of  members  and 
"activists."  The  founder  of 
the  Coalition's  New  York 
chapter,  Jeff  Baran,  howev- 
er, told  the  National  Catholic 
Reporter  last  year  that  the 
chapter's  claim  of  90,000 
members  included  everyone 
who  had  ever  been  contact- 
ed by  the  group. 

Suitably,  one  of  the  most 
penetrating  1994  post- elec- 
tion analyses  came  not  from 
the  Times  or  Post  but  Ad- 
week.  Reed  had  pulled  off 
his  triumph,  the  advertising 
journal  wrote,  by  "repackag- 
ing his  product  in  warm, 
fuzzy  wrapping— fine-tuning 
an  ideology  that  had  previously  terrified 
as  many  people  as  it  attracted."  Perhaps 
sensing  their  commonality,  Reed  was  un- 
usually frank  with  Adweek.  The  Coali- 
tion's predecessor,  Jerry  Falwell's  Moral 
Majority,  had  made  "a  major  marketing 
error"  by  pretending  it  represented  a  ma- 
jority, Reed  told  reporter  Alicia  Mundy. 
He  knows  he  represents  a  minority, 
Mundy  wrote,  and  is  "going  for  vertical 
saturation  of  the  market." 

Reed  is  trying  to  make  his  minority 
large  enough  to  control  the  majority.  To 
enlarge  their  constituency,  Robertson  and 
Reed  have  a  natural  target— Catholics. 
Theologically,  the  two  groups  have  almost 
insurmountable  differences  and,  with  the 
fall  of  the  atheistic  Soviet  Union  and  the 
rise  of  global  television,  frequently  find 
themselves  in  worldwide  hand-to-hand  com- 

151 


Robertson 


bat  for  souls.  Evangelicals  are  pouring  into 
the  religious  void  left  behind  by  the  fall  of 
Communism  in  territories  once  considered 
strongholds  of  the  Catholic  and  Orthodox 
Churches.  The  Pope  has  made  two  trips  to 
Latin  America,  where  the  Evangelicals  are 
making  inroads  into  a  region  held  by  the 
Catholic  Church  for  centuries.  Robertson 
always  speaks  in  flamboyant  numbers,  but 
he  predicts  CBN  will  make  half  a  billion 
converts  before  the  end  of  the  century. 

In  domestic  politics  there  is  more  com- 
mon ground  between  the  two  groups.  The 
Coalition's  abortion  litmus  test  is  a  start- 
ing point,  and  many  Catholics  are  of  a 
mind  with  the  Evangelicals  on  other  so- 
cial issues  as  well.  Catholics  have  always 
had  a  hard-right  contingent— Reed  claims 
that  16  percent  of  the  Christian  Coalition 
is  Catholic.  American  Catholics  also  have 
been  falling  away  from  the  Democratic 
Party— in  1994  a  majority  voted  Republi- 
can for  the  first  time. 

"If  the  pro-family  Roman  Catholics 
and  the  conservative  Evangelicals  unite 
together,"  Robertson  said,  "there  is  no 
candidate  that  we  cannot  elect  anywhere 
in  the  nation." 


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Still,  American  Catholics  are  pluralis- 
tic, and  it  is  easier  to  find  a  vocal  liberal 
than  a  vocal  conservative  among  them  on 
social  issues.  Robertson  is  not  an  easy 
sell.  Nor  is  his  shoot-from-the-lip  reaction 
to  ecumenism:  "You  say,  'You're  sup- 
posed to  be  nice  to  the  Episcopalians  and 
the  Presbyterians  and  the  Methodists  and 
this,  that,  and  the  other  thing.'  Nonsense! 
I  don't  have  to  be  nice  to  the  spirit  of  the 
Antichrist."  Robertson  made  that  state- 
ment on  the  700  Club  broadcast  on  Janu- 
ary 14,  1991,  two  years  after  his  official 
"moderation"  began. 

The  Coalition  began  laying  the 
groundwork  for  a  working  relationship 
with  Catholics  in  New  York  in  1993  by 
joining  forces  with  conservative  cardinal 
John  O'Connor  in  local  school-board 
elections.  The  issues  were  properly  elec- 
tric: support  for  candidates  who  favored 
school  prayer,  opposition  to  candidates 
who  promoted  condom  distribution  and 
discussion  of  homosexuality.  The  new 
partnership  seemed  an  instant  success. 
Christian  Coalition  voter  guides  were  dis- 
tributed throughout  213  parishes,  and 
pro-prayer  candidates  made  large  gains. 

When  Pope  John  Paul  II  visited  New 
York  last  October,  Robertson  reaped  a 
surprising  payoff:  he,  along  with  30  oth- 
er religious  leaders,  was  invited  to  meet 
the  pontiff  in  O'Connor's  private  resi- 
dence. Afterward,  Robertson  described 
the  meeting  to  The  700  Club  in  an  al- 
most childlike  gush.  "The  Pope  took 
both  my  hands  in  his,"  he  said.  "There 
was  a  real  bond  between  us." 

During  the  meeting  Robertson  gave 
the  Pope  an  unusual  three-page  let- 
ter, outlining  CBN's  evangelizing  and 
suggesting  that  they  set  aside  their  "minor 
differences"  and  join  forces  to  accom- 
plish the  task.  The  letter  set  off  fireworks. 
Some  of  the  language  was  presumptuous: 
"I  must  tell  you  the  power  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  very  much  alive."  Some  was 
pushy:  "I  would  be  honored  to  meet  with 
you  again  perhaps  at  the  Vatican— for 
further  discussions  and  prayer." 

The  Pope  did  not  reply. 

Father  McBrien,  the  Notre  Dame  the- 
ologian, has  read  the  letter  and  calls  it 
"gooey"  and  "ingratiating  to  a  fault."  He 
asks,  "Maybe  I'm  being  too  cynical,  but 
why  would  he  write  such  a  letter?  It's  all 
about  Robertson's  business.  He  wants 
something  from  the  Pope.  He  wants  a  re- 
ply that  he  can  use  in  his  business." 
("That's  absurd,"  Robertson's  spokesman, 
Gene  Kapp,  retorted.) 

After  that,  other  efforts  to  recruit 
Catholics  hit  some  bumps.  "Poor  chil- 


J  COlU' 


dren  and  immigrants.  That's  not  on  thl  p& 
agenda,"  said  Bishop  Howard  Hubb; 
of  Albany,  New  York.  "It's  a  major  p 
of  ours."  But  the  Christian  Coalition  vks 
still  struggling  to  form  Catholic  Alliai  fctf 
chapters  as  the  election  year  began.  TlgM 
came  Pat  Buchanan,  a  hard-right  Cathc  uu' 
so  close  to  the  Robertson  profile  that  aSfc 
percent  of  the  Christian  right  voted  j  s  1  e 
him  in  New  Hampshire.  But  Reed  a,  itifj 
Robertson  didn't  want  Buchanan.  Til  dm  \ 
wanted  a  minority  that  controlled  the  r  (M 
jority,  not  a  minority  that  controlled  i  died 
minority.  Buchanan  couldn't  win.  He  wis  a 
one  of  them.  i  arch. 

As  the  summer  conventions  neaa(  ratters 
and  Bob  Dole  weakened  in  the  poi  suck 
Reed  tried  again  to  give  some  help— "w*  m  to 
gle  room,"  The  New  York  Times  called;  laues 
In  his  new  book,  Active  Faith,  Rei  I  fa 
called  upon  his  activists  for  "charity"  |  trmi 
ward  their  opponents.  Then  he  hit  It  soil; 
rawest  nerve  of  all:  he  suggested  nn  tb! 
language  for  the  Republicans'  rigid,  n  It's  en. 
exceptions  anti-abortion  plank.  The  77w»*ii!iti 
played  the  story  as  its  page-one  lead.    !  to 

All  hell  broke  loose.  The  anti-abortiii|tt>: 
activists,  many  of  them  from  his  0'»i  \M 
group,  landed  hard.  Within  hours  he  w.  jforl 
issuing  correctives  and  denials,  heading  i  % ; 
the  rabbit  hole  again.  The  gap  from  poM  li  >  | 
cal  pragmatism  to  his  backers'  passicc  lie 
was  too  wide  to  straddle.  The  RepublicilMi 
Party  began  to  worry  that  its  ballyhoo 
alliance  with  Reed's  right  could  turn  tl 
miracle  of  1994  into  the  disaster  of  1991) 

Had  the  media  been  looking  at  recetfcli 
comments  about  abortion  by  Reed's  bo«  |fe 
they  would  have  found  a  gap  that  had  1 
come  a  gulf.  "God  Almighty  is  going:) 
exact  from  this  nation  one  adult  for  ev« 
baby  we've  killed,"  Robertson  said 
June  20,  1995,  on  The  700  Club.  "A\ 
right  now  the  total  is  up  somewhere 
the  neighborhood  of  32  to  35  millici  dTerr 
That's  how  many  adults  are  going  to  q  nt of 
in  America  before  God's  wrath  is  f 
ished  on  this  nation." 

To  the  president  of  People  for  ti 
American  Way,  Carole  Shields,  the  co:' 
ment  was  curdling.  "If  you  take  those 
titudes  and  couch  them  in  the  language*! 
of  values  and  religion,"  Shields  sa:u  mja. ; 
"you've  got  something  pretty  sinister."     Sen » 

Four 

Religion  and  politics  have  been  inset . 
arable  since  the  founding  of  the  n 
tion.  Before  George  Bush,  the  count: 
had  three  successive  "born -again"  pre' 
dents.  The  last,  Ronald  Reagan,  believ< 
that  Armageddon  was  coming,  perha 
in  his  lifetime. 

The  Founding  Fathers  were  religio 
men,  but  most  of  them  were  profounc 

VANITY  FAIR /JULY  15  iljj 


1  ra 
Then 

lbs 


Tk< 
t! 

\i 

Ik 


"Hie 


rem 


Mb! 


S: 


Iiicious  of  dogma,  organized  theology, 

demagogues.  It  is  unlikely  that  any  of 
a  could  be  elected  in  a  world  con- 
ned by  Pat  Robertson. 
;en  Franklin  believed  in  God  but  had 
bts  about  the  divinity  of  Jesus.  Pressed 
ut  it  at  age  83,  he  answered  that  it  was 
jdless  to  busy  myself  with  it  now, 
n  I  expect  soon  an  opportunity  of 
wing  the  truth  with  less  trouble." 
lohn  Adams  was  also  deeply  cynical 

he  subject  of  born -again  awakenings. 

called  John  Wesley,  the  famed  evan- 
st  and  founder  of  the  Methodist 
irch,  "one  of  the  most  remarkable 
racters  that  enthusiasm,  superstition, 
iiticism  ever  produced."  Thomas  Jef- 
on  had  doubts  about  the  entire  New 
tament.  He  rejected  the  resurrection 

discarded  the  Book  of  Revelation  as 
ravings  of  a  maniac."  The  Robert- 
s  of  Jefferson's  day  denounced  him  as 
:  howling  atheist." 

t's  enough  to  make  old  Tom  hang  un- 
/  in  the  Founder's  Inn. 
Across  the  thick  green  grass,  inside  the 
adcast  center,  the  founder  is  standing 

blackboard  doing  the  prophetic  num- 

for  his  television  audience. 
'The  end  is  drawing  nigh,"  he  says. 
t  is  the  fifth  and  final  day  of  Signs  of 

Times  week.  No  news  on  The  700 
b  today.  No  hemorrhoids  healed. 
'I  want  you  to  go  to  your  phones  ..." 
["here  is  a  saying  in  the  business:  Noth- 

brings  it  in  as  fast  as  the  end  of  the 
rid.  Last  chance  to  make  things  right 
h  the  Lord.  Money  time, 
rhe  800  number  appears  on  the  bot- 
l  of  the  screen. 

'We  need  $5,000  every  minute  ..." 
\  phone  rings. 

'And  now  to  Ben  and  Terry." 
Ihe  camera  switches  to  Ben  Kinchlow 
I  Terry  Meeuwsen,  who  stand  before  a 
lk  of  jangling  phones.  Ben  is  grinning. 
"The   calls   are   coming   in   from  all 
oss  America,  Pat!" 
Terry  reads  from  a  fistful  of  pledges. 
'Battle   Creek,   Michigan,   at   $20   a 
nth!    Forty    dollars    a    month    from 
densburg,  Maryland!  Hesperia,  Cali- 
nia,  it's  the  $1,000  Club,  Ben!" 
Ben  grins.  Pat  beams. 
Four  more  years  .  .  .  □ 


Credits 


Fashion 


Cover:  Nicolos  Cage's  Gianfranco  Ferre  sui!  from 
Soks  Fifth  Avenue,  Beverly  Hills,  and  the  Gianfranco 
Ferre  Boutiques,  Palm  Beach  and  Beverly  Hills:  Ma- 
kins  Studio  hat  from  Saks  Fifth  Avenue,  Beverly  Hills; 
Polo  by  Ralph  Lauren  shoes  from  Ralph  Lauren,  NYC 
Page  14:  Bottom  left,  see  credits  for  cover.  Bottom 
right,  Gianni  Versace  shirt  from  Versace  boutiques 
nationwide;  Gianni  Versace  pants  and  shoes  from 
the  Versace  boutique,  Beverly  Hills. 
Page  65:  Anne  Heche's  Giorgio  Armani  suit  from 
Giorgio  Armani,  L.A.;  Morgan  shirt  from  American 
Rag  Cie,  LA;  Charlie  Altuna  for  Jed  Root  West. 
Page  68:  Right,  styled  by  Kelly  Biren. 
Page  69:  Styled  by  Jeffrey  Hill  Burt  Bacharach's 
suit,  shirt,  and  shoes  by  Giorgio  Armani,  from 
Giorgio  Armani,  NYC. 

Page  77'.  Nicolas  Cage's  Gianni  Versace  shirt 
and  pants  by  special  order  from  Versace  boutiques 
nationwide. 

Page  79:  Dolce  &  Gabbana  T-shirt  from  Barneys 
New  York,  N.Y.C.  and  LA.;  Chrome  Hearts  pants  by 
special  order  from  Chrome  Hearts,  LA;  linens  from 
Pratesi,  NYC.  and  LA. 

Pages  80-81 :  Gianni  Versace  shirt  and  boots  from 
Versace  boutiques  nationwide;  Issey  Miyake  suit  and 
Dries  van  Noten  coat  from  Barneys  New  York,  LA. 
Page  89:  Robin  Wright's  Herve  Leger  dress  from 
Bergdorf  Goodman,  NYC;  Manolo  Blahnik  shoes 
from  Manolo  Blahnik,  LA. 

Pages  90-97:  Sean  McGee  for  Butler-Reghanti. 
Page  92:  Sir  Norman  Foster's  Faconnable  neck- 
tie from  Nordstrom  stores  nationwide. 
Page  94:  For  Michael  Graves's  Boss  Hugo  Boss 
suit,  call  800-HUGO-BOSS;  Nautica  shirt  and  socks 
from    Bloomingdale's   stores    nationwide.    Charles 
Gwathmey's  Polo  by  Ralph  Lauren  shirt  and  pants 
from  Polo  Ralph  Lauren,  N.Y.C. 
Page  95:  Peter  Eisenman's  Paul  Stuart  shirt,  bow 
tie,  and  suspenders  from  Paul  Stuart,  N.Y.C;  J.  P. 
Tod's  shoes  from  Diego  Delia  Valle,  N.Y.C. 
Page  96:  For  Philippe  Starck's  Hush  Puppies  shoes, 
call  800-433-HUSH;  Joseph  Oppedisano  for  Boss. 
Page  97:  Robert  A.  M.  Stern's  Paul  Stuart  neck- 
tie from  Paul  Stuart,  N.Y.C. 

Page  107:  Charlie  Watts's  Paul  Stuart  jacket, 
shirt,  and  bow  tie  from  Paul  Stuart,  N.Y.C;  William 
Gilchrist  for  Streeters. 

Page  140:  Bernardo  Fort-Brescia's  Paul  Smith  suit 
from  Paul  Smith,  N.Y.C  Laurinda  Spear's  Robert 
Lee  Morris  earrings  from  the  Robert  Lee  Morris 
Boutique,  N.Y.C 

Beauty  and  [rooming 

Cover:  Nicolas  Cage  groomed  with  products  from 

Aramis. 

Page  65:  Anne  Heche's  hair  styled  with  Aveda 

Pure-Fume  Brilliant  Humectant  Pomade.  All  makeup 

from  Trish  McEvoy.  On  her  eyes,  Definer  No.  20  and 

Glazes  No.  1  and  1  10;  on  her  lips,  Lipcolor  No  63. 

John  Setaro  for  Celestine,   Bethany  Karlyn  for  Jed 

Root  West 

Page  69:  Burt  Bacharach's  grooming  by  Sylvia 

Viau  for  Cloulier. 


Page  89:  Robin  Wright's  makeup  from  Christian 
Dior.  On  her  eyes  and  cheeks,  Marine  Escapade/ 
Make-up  Artist  Palette;  on  her  lips,  Lipstick  in  Adven- 
turous Wine  Oribe  for  the  Oribe  Salon,  Francesco 
Tolol  for  Cloulier. 

Pages  90-97:  All  grooming  by  llise  Heitzner 
Harris  for  Butler-Reghanti. 

Page  107:  Charlie  Watts's  grooming  by  Trevor 
Bowden  for  Elizabeth  Watson;  grooming  products 
from  Polo  Ralph  Lauren 

Page  140:  Bernardo  Fort-Brescia's  grooming  and 
Laurinda  Spear's  hair  and  makeup  by  Regine  Thorre 
for  Sarah  Laird. 

Page  156:  Quincy  Jones's  grooming  by  Roxy  for 
the  Dawn  to  Dusk  Agency. 

Photographs  and  Miscellany 

Page  32:  From  U.P.I./Corbis-Beltmann 

Page  36:  Courtesy  of  the  John  F.  Kennedy  Library. 

Page  38:  From  Pix/FPG. 

Page  40:  Courtesy  of  the  John  F.  Kennedy  Library. 
Page  44:  From  the  Archive  of  Contemporary  Mu- 
sic, New  York  (album|,  by  Roberta  Bayley  (McLar- 
en], Godlis  (Manitoba),  courtesy  of  Legs  McNeil 
(Punk);  all  others  by  Bob  Gruen/Slar  File 
Page  46:  Both  from  Star  File. 
Page  48:  Bottom,  from  Star  File. 
Page  57:  Clockwise  from  left,  from  Life  magazine, 
from  Culver  Pictures,  from  A.P./Wide  World  Photos. 
Page  68:  Left,  top,  by  Len  Prince;  second  from  top, 
by  Albert  Ortega/Celebrity  Photo. 
Page  82:  From  the  Kansas  City  Slar. 
Page  84:  Clockwise  from  top,  by  Corinne  Dufka/ 
Corbis-Bettmann/Reuters,  Wally  McNamee/Syg- 
ma,  Allan  Tannenbaum/Sygma,  Wally  McNamee/ 
Woodfin  Camp. 

Page  87:  Top,  from  Contact  Press  Images;  second 
from  bottom,  from  Globe  Photos;  others  from  A.  P./ 
Wide  World  Photos. 

Pages  90-97:  Props  styled  by  Faith  Meade. 
Page   92:   Bottom,   from   the   Kilham   Collection/ 
Drawings  and  Archives/ Avery  Architectural  and  Fine 
Arts  Library/Columbia   University  and   the  City  of 
New  York. 

Page  98:  From  Outline. 

Page  101:  Center  right  and  bottom  left  and  right, 
from  the  Hammond,  Louisiana,  Daily  Star, 
Pages  120-21:  Left  to  right,  by  Henry  Grossman, 
Sanli  Visalli/Pholoreporters,   Burton   Berinsky;   inset 
by  Elliott  Erwilt/Magnum. 

Pages  122-23:  Large  photograph  from  Mag- 
num; inset  ©  by  the  Museum  of  the  City  of  New 
York. 

Pages   124-25:  By  Burton  Berinsky  (Fairbanks, 
Fontaine,  Lane),  from  U.P.I./Corbis-Bettmann  (Bald- 
win, Hart),  all  others  by  Henry  Grossman 
Page  127:  From  Magnum. 
Pages   128-29:  Large  photograph  courtesy  of 
Vogue,  ©   1967,  renewed    1995,  by  the  Conde 
Nast  Publications  Inc 
Page  131:  From  Magnum 

Pages  132-33:  Courtesy  of  Vogue,  ©  1967,  re- 
newed 1995,  by  the  Conde  Nasi  Publications  Inc. 


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JITY  FAIR/JULY  1996 


153 


CANCER  ^JF  June  22-July  22 
With  Venus  retrograde  in  your  12th  house  and  Mars  there  at  the  same 
time,  this  could  be  one  of  your  crazier,  more  paranoid  birthdays.  Howev- 
er, you're  not  crazy  and  you're  not  paranoid.  Even  if  your  boss,  shrink, 
or  sweetheart  tells  you  it's  all  in  your  head,  things  are  going  on  behind 
your  back.  Normally  if  someone  hangs  up  the  phone  quickly  when  you 
enter  a  room,  you  tend  to  think  he  or  she  has  been  talking  to  the  doctor 
about  your  "case."  This  month  you  may  be  right.  Remember,  though,  that 
your  fears  are  secret  fantasies  that  you  yourself  are  harboring. 


SI 


LEO  C/(,  July  23-August  22 
A  lot  of  people  are  being  driven  crazy  by  Leos  lately.  It  seems  that  many 
members  of  your  sign  (especially  the  baby-boomers  born  with  Pluto  in 
Leo)  have  become  even  more  obsessed  than  usual  with  getting  attention. 
They  are  often  downright  obnoxious  about  making  sure  they're  not  ig- 
nored, which  seems  to  have  the  opposite  effect:  people  are  so  turned  off 
by  the  Look-at-me!  antics  that  they'll  do  anything  to  get  away.  If  you're 
not  one  of  those  Leos,  ignore  this  message.  If  you  are,  do  something  for 
humanity.  Try  being  part  of  a  group.  It  won't  kill  you. 

VIRGO      V»]r    August  23-September  22 

While  members  of  your  sign  are  supposed  to  be  dedicated,  humble  ser- 
vants, as  silent  as  nuns  in  a  convent  and  more  neutral  than  eunuchs  in  a 
harem,  the  presence  of  planets  in  your  solar  midheaven  has  got  to  add  zip 
and  verve  to  your  normally  shy  and  reclusive  nature.  It's  not  that  you  nec- 
essarily lack  ambition.  It's  just  that  you're  usually  waiting  around  like  a 
Hollywood  starlet,  hoping  someone  will  lift  up  that  cabbage  leaf  and  dis- 
cover you.  Mars  in  your  10th  house  proves  that  even  Virgos  can  experi- 
ence the  drive  for  dominance,  sexual  and  otherwise. 


CAPRICORN     \J    December  22-January  19 

There  were  moments  last  year  when  you  were  immobilized.  If  you  (I 
find  a  person  or  thing  to  blame,  just  say  that  Saturn  made  you  resM 
nervous,  and  unable  to  concentrate.  Now  with  that  planet  in  the  sigi 
Aries,  you're  full  of  spit  and  fire,  especially  when  it  comes  to  prote< 
your  turf,  which  is  definitely  going  to  need  protecting  in  the  cor 
months.  The  good  news  is  that  you're  energized  now.  With  Mars  in 
6th  house,  working  more  consistently  and  with  greater  focus  should 
the  wolf  from  the  door— unless,  of  course,  wolves  turn  you  on. 


AQUARIUS    WWW  January  20-February  18 

At  long  last  you  are  climbing  out  of  the  gloomy  shadows  or  stepping 
of  the  darkened  room  (possibly  a  closet,  if  the  term  seems  apt).  Althd 
when  it  comes  to  the  future,  not  even  astrologers  can  give  guaranteed 
the  sun  begins  its  glorious  ascent  along  with  Mercury,  Venus,  and  til 
you  must  believe  that  all  the  goblins  that  have  been  dancing  in  your  b 
over  the  last  few  years  have  finally  dried  up  and  blown  away.  You'n 
the  comeback  trail.  Call  it  a  new  lease  on  life,  if  you  want,  but  it's  jij 
lease.  You  don't  own.  You're  just  renting. 


X 


PISCES    ^T\   February  19~March  20 

Whether  you've  been  a  hot  box-office  property  or  a  building  superintend! 
your  career  is  in  a  major  transition.  Of  course,  being  a  Pisces,  if  yq 
a  movie  star,  you  often  end  up  playing  a  lowlife  anyway,  and  if  you'i 
blue-collar  worker,  you  spend  half  your  time  fantasizing  about  what 
will  be  like  when  you  become  famous.  With  the  inner  planets  oppo 
Pluto  right  now,  it  may  be  great  to  be  recognized  and  have  people  I 
ing  at  you,  but  it's  also  wonderful  to  have  privacy,  live  daily  life,  do 
the  kitchen,  and  watch  kids  grow  up.  Pisceans  must  have  it  all. 


LIBRA   ^m£   September  23-0ctober  23 

You  have  no  conflicts  or  ambivalence  over  any  of  your  major  relation- 
ships. You're  ecstatically  happy.  You  don't  feel  lonely.  You  don't  feel  a 
shred  of  insecurity  about  being  worthy.  You  have  no  fear  of  being  strand- 
ed and  alone,  and  above  all  you  don't  need  counseling.  O.K..  fine.  With 
a  Saturn-Chiron  node  configuration  operating  all  year,  if  the  slightest  feel- 
ing of  anxiety  should  dare  to  creep  into  your  sunshine-filled  consciousness, 
break  the  tension  with  a  little  trip.  If  that  doesn't  work,  phone  a  shrink 
or  a  wise  relative.  If  all  else  fails,  try  truth  in  communication. 


nv 


SCORPIO  \  J  WT  October  24-November  21 
High  consciousness  is  a  wonderful  thing  to  aim  for.  It's  not  only  what 
New  Agers  have  been  yapping  about  since  the  60s  but  also  what  even  the 
ancients  sought  to  achieve  and  one  out  of  12  of  them  had  to  be  a  Scor- 
pio. When  planets  transit  your  8th  house,  however,  as  they  are  doing  now, 
you  are  humbled  by  such  lowly  preoccupations  as  estate  taxes,  joint  fi- 
nances, and  all  types  of  messy  paperwork  involving  money  and  other  peo- 
ple's greed.  Besides  that,  there  is  now  a  devilish  sexual  desire  to  cope  with. 
The  primitive  animal  lives  within  us  all. 


ARIES       J       March  21-Apnl  19 

A  lunation  in  your  4th  house  should  be  the  perfect  moment  to  eat  a. 
ster  on  a  moonlit  deck  overlooking  the  sea  or  to  settle  down  in  a  COK 
hidden  by  tall  pine  trees  and  forget  every  earthly  care  and  woe.  All 
would  be  possible  if  there  were  no  phones,  faxes,  E-mailings,  or  r!l 
planets  of  your  1st  house  transiting  your  3rd.  On  this  very  real  pi: 
existence,  however,  you  are  itchy  and  restless,  so  fidgety  that  you  are 
put  to  find  a  spot  to  light  on  for  longer  than  five  minutes.  That  maW 
rather  tough  for  anyone  sharing  your  bed  right  now. 

TAURUS   0   April  20-May  20 

Tauruses  know  just  how  ridiculous  and  fleeting  all  the  phenomena  oiij 
physical  world  really  are.  Social  position,  for  example.  You  could  bdi 
darling  of  the  polo  set,  sharing  squab  with  the  swells,  one  moment  anirf 
ting  alone  in  a  diner  eating  corned-beef  hash  the  next.  With  Uranus  i 
earth  house  and  Saturn  and  Pluto  in  water  houses,  you  need  to  be  f 
ing  about  such  lofty  philosophical  issues  as  the  nature  of  immortality.  I| 
let  yourself  get  too  far  out,  though.  With  inner  planets  in  your  2nd  hill 
continue  shopping,  spending,  and  screaming  about  money. 


SAGITTARIUS  «JT*  November  22-December  21 
Sagittarians  are  supposed  to  be  in  search  of  truth,  and  for  the  most  part 
you  are.  especially  when  it  comes  to  the  Big  Issues,  such  as  where  Jesus 
was  actually  born,  whether  Supreme  Court  justices  are  corrupt,  or  what 
your  sister-in-law  was  really  doing  in  Chicago  for  seven  months  before  she 
met  your  brother.  Although  you've  been  known  to  exhibit  outbursts  of  de- 
fensive temper,  in  your  effort  to  avoid  confrontations  you  prefer  to  pre- 
tend you  didn't  hear  something.  With  Mars  in  your  7th  house,  heated 
discussions  will  not  only  clear  the  air  but  also,  conceivably,  lead  to  sex. 


GEMINI  <\  May  21-June  21 
For  many  months  you've  been  thinking  twice  about  the  dubious  joys  • 
freedom  which  you  once  relished  above  everything  else.  With  Pluto  in  J 
7th  house,  it  has  begun  to  dawn  on  you  that  your  precious  independ 
doesn't  mean  all  that  much  if  you  don't  have  someone  to  share  it 
This  month,  however,  as  Mars  transits  Gemini,  you're  probably  goirii 
be  up  to  some  of  your  old  tricks.  It's  not  that  you're  flaky,  noncoM 
tal,  and  duplicitous.  It's  just  that  you're  trying  to  integrate  your  nee<| 
financial  stability  with  your  love  of  being  a  nutcase. 


154 


VANITY  FAIR/ JULY 


ff 


.t's  fiery.  Feels  cool  against  your  finger. 
Captures  light  and  turns  it  to  brilliance. 


yneaking  a  look  at  it  once  in  a  while, 
you  vow  to  keep  up  the  manicures. 


Your  diamond,  extraordinary  and  rar 


hy  wait? 


diamond  of  a  carat  or  more 
For  you,  for  now,  forever. 


[uality  diamond  of  a  carat  or 
u  one.  For  a  portfolio  of  awa 


o  rare  that  fewer  than  one  percent  of  women  will  ever 
ling  diamond  designs  call  1-800-FOREVER  Dept.  16. 

A  diamond  is  forever. 
De  Beers 


diamonds  sho 


nrnm-mmiiiiiwwi 


I 


Quincy 
Jones 


He  played  horn  for 

Billie  Holiday  at  age  14  and  went  on 

to  produce  The  Color  Purple, 

Michael  Jackson's  Thriller,  and  this 

year's  Oscars.  Now  the  "Q" 

provides  all  the  "A's"  for  V.F.  s 

Proust  Questionnaire 


156 


What  is  your  idea  of  perfect  happiness? 

Inner  peace. 

What  is  your  greatest  fear? 

That  racism  and  war  have  become  a  prerequisite  for 
small-minded  people  to  become  giants. 

Which  living  person  do  you  most  admire? 

Nelson  Mandela. 

What  is  the  trait  you  most  deplore  in  yourself? 

Having  too  many  things  on  my  plate. 

What  is  the  trait  you  most  deplore  in  others? 

Constantly  trying  to  put  even  more  on  my  plate. 

What  do  you  consider  the  most  overrated  virtue? 

Celibacy. 

What  is  your  greatest  regret? 

Having  been  too  busy  in  the  80s  to  sign  Luther  Vandross,!«| 
Whitney  Houston,  Bobby  McFerrin, 
and  Brian  McKnight  to  my  label,  Qwest 
Records,  and  not  producing 
Marvin  Gaye.  I  never  thought  that  he 
would  leave  before  I  did. 

When  and  where  were  you  happiest? 

Right  here,  right  now. 

Which  talent  would  you  most  like  to  have? 

To  be  a  great  father. 

What  is  your  current  state  of  mind? 

Right  on  time. 

What  do  you  consider  your  greatest 
achievement? 

My  kids,  and  living  to  the  age  of  63. 

What  do  you  regard  as  the  lowest 
depth  of  misery? 

Envy,  sloth,  selfishness,  and  boredom. 

What  is  your  most  marked  characteristic? 

A  joie  de  vivre  and  hugging. 

What  is  the  quality  you  most  like  in  a  man? 

The  ability  to  accept  the  female  side 
in  all  of  us. 

What  is  the  quality  you  most  like  in 
a  woman? 

Same  as  above. 

What  do  you  most  value  in  your  friends? 

Unconditional  love. 

Who  are  your  favorite  writers? 

Maya  Angelou,  Alice  Walker,  Ralph  Ellison,  Aleksandr 
Pushkin,  Pablo  Neruda. 

How  would  you  like  to  die? 

In  2033,  in  my  sleep,  after  working  all  day,  having  wine 
and  dinner  with  my  closest  friends,  and  making  passional  | 
love  to  my  lady.  Not  a  second  before. 

What  is  your  motto? 

"I'd  rather  say  I'm  sorry  I  did  it,  rather  than 

I  wish  I  had,"  and  "Live  each  day  like  it's  the  last, 

and  do  each  job  like  it's  the  first." 

VANITY  FAIR /JULY 


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» 


TIBET'S 
LOST  LAMA 

In  Search  of  the 
lissing  Boy  Buddha 
by  Alex  Shoumatoff 


UHNABELS  BASQUIAT 

An  80s  Art-World 

k  Who's  Who 

by  Bob  Colacello 

and  Eika  Aoshima 

THE  SOCIALITE 
AND  THE  MOUNTAIN 
Ego,  Ambition  and 
Disaster  on  Everest 
by  Jennet  Conant 

SPLENDOR  IN  THE  CRASS 
Helmut  Newton 
Shoots  Cannes 


BURLINGAME 

JUL  1  S  1996 

LIBRARY 


I 


POISONED  CHALICE 

The  New  Republic's 

Big  Problem 

by  Marjorie  Williams 


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N°432 


August  199' 


Features 

LONE  STAR 

Matthew  McConaughey's  performance  in 

A  Time  to  Kill,  due  out  this  summer,  has  Hollywood 

buzzing  with  comparisons  to  Newman  and 

Brando.  Kevin  Sessums  catches  the  young  Texan 

in  the  last  private  moments  before  his  screen  explosion. 

Photographs  by  Herb  Ritts 7 

SNOW-BLIND  AMBITION 

Socialite  Sandy  Hill  Pittman's  passion 

for  scaling  mountains  almost  led  her  to  her  death 

on  Everest  in  May— and  may  have  destroyed 

her  marriage.  Amid  charges  that  behind  Pittman's  drive 

for  the  summit  was  an  even  stronger  drive  for 

the  media  spotlight,  Jennet  Conant  finds  out  just  what 

happened  during  the  blizzard  that  took  eight  lives 81 

THE  FLAMENCO  KID 

Ruven  Afanador  and  Christopher  Hitchens  spotlight 

the  Gypsy  rhythms  of  dance  sensation  Joaquin  Cortes, 

who  is  touching  off  an  international  craze 80 

SPLENDOR  IN  THE  CRASS 

Between  the  rave  shed  and  the  "floating  brothel," 

Helmut  Newton  captures  the  glorious  circus 

of  excess  that  is  the  Cannes  film  festival  as  David  Kamp 

covers  the  seedy,  starlit  waterfront 81 

KYRA  ROYALE 

David  Seidner  spotlights  Kyra  Sedgwick,  who  gives 

David  Kamp  something  to  talk  about  with 

starring  roles  opposite  John  Travolta  in  Phenomenon 

and  in  husband  Kevin  Bacon's  Losing  Chase 9fl 

SUN  WITHOUT  A  MOON 

The  young  boy  revealed  to  be  the  reincarnation  of  the 
10th  Panchen  Lama— the  moon  to  the  Dalai  Lama's  sun- 
has  disappeared,  victim  of  an  international 
political  power  play.  In  the  remote  high  plains  of  Tibet, 
Alex  Shoumatoff  tracks  the  missing  Buddha 9 

HORST  LATITUDES 

Celebrating  the  90th  birthday  of  photographer 

Horst  P.  Horst,  Laura  Jacobs  illuminates  his  legend 

as  Hamiltons  Gallery  in  London  mounts  a  show 

spanning  his  career 101 1 

SCHN ABEL'S  BASQUIAT 

Bob  Colacello  previews  Julian  Schnabel's 

movie  about  the  brilliant,  broken  career  of  80s  painter 

Jean-Michel  Basquiat,  while  Eika  Aoshima 

photographs  Dennis  Hopper,  David  Bowie,  and  others 

of  the  cameo-packed  cast 1 1 

(Continued  on  page  14  \ 

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KMOHOA 


PHENOMENAL  KYRA 
PAGE  96. 


YFAIR 


August  1996 


(Continued  from  page  10) 


IN  COROT  COUNTRY 

Henry  Porter  hails  the  genius  of  landscape 
painter  Camille  Corot,  whose  200th  anniversary 
is  inspiring  a  fall  retrospective  at  the 
Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art 


120 


DRESS  ME,  HARDY 

For  the  last  half-century.  Hardy  Amies  has  dressed 

essential  English  icons  from  Her  Majesty  the  Queen 

to  the  flight  attendants  of  British  Airways. 

Visiting  the  flamboyant  knight  of  Savile  Row, 

Michael  Shnayerson  discovers  the  outrageous  snob  appeal 

of  the  last  of  London's  Big  10  fashion  designers. 

Photograph  by  Snowdon 


124- 


Columns 


AMERICA  AGONISTES 

In  an  excerpt  from  his  new  book. 

The  Day  Before  Yesterday,  Michael  Elliott 

argues  that  America's  nostalgia  for  the  postwar 

Golden  Age  may  be  all  that's  keeping 

the  country  of  Microsoft  and  Disney  from  the 

next  call  to  glory 


40' 


THE  BATTLE  HYMN  OF  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC 

As  Washington  journalist  Michael  Kelly  takes  the  helm 
of  America's  most  venerable  journal  of  opinion, 
Marjorie  Williams  exposes  the  deeply  rooted  conflicts 
underlying  the  tumultuous  departure  of  Kelly's 
predecessor,  Andrew  Sullivan,  and  the  neo-narcissism 
that  has  sapped  the  magazine's  influence 


54 


Vanities 


GRILLING  ALISON  ELLIOTT 

True  Lies  VI:  The  Campaign  Trail; 

Olympic  touch  -George  Wayne  on  LeRoy  Neiman; 

V.F.  Camera  catches  spring  fever 


63 


Et  Cetera 


EDITOR'S  LETTER:  Match  game 18 

CONTRIBUTORS 24 

LETTERS:  Cruise  control 34 

CREDITS 148 

PLANETARIUM:  Exercise  your  mind,  Leo 149 

SOCIAL  STUDY:  Jack  Germond  weighs  the  Proust  Questionnaire  .  .  150 

Printed  in  the  U.S.A. 


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Punch  the  accelerator,  however,  and  any  notion  of  lazy  tranquility 
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6.  Baby  grand  piano 

7.  Easy  chairs  (more 
mileage  logged  than 
babyjogger) 

8.  Yard-Man  riding 
mower 

9.  Books,  nonfiction 

10.  Calphalon  anodized 
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MAI'V  MATA'LIN 

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One  thing  they  do  agree  on,  however,  is  the  American  Express® 
Card.  That's  because  the  Card  is  welcomed  at  all  kinds  of 
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Lowe's  Home  Grand  Piano  & 

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"Matthew  McConaughey  is  quite  aware  of  what 

awaits  him  in  the  coming  months,"  says  contributing  editor  Kevin  Sessums 

of  the  subject  of  his  cover  story  on  page  14,  "a  slew  of  accolades, 

curious  women,  a  crash  course  in  stardom." 


Contributing  photographer  Helmut 
Newton  captures  the  brittle,  tinsel 
glamour  of  the  1996  Cannes  Interna- 
tional Festival  of  Film  in  this  issue, 
and  says  he  especially  admires  the  pa- 
parazzi, who  are  an  integral  part  of  the 
Cannes  atmosphere:  "I  am  fascinated 
by  their  hard  jobs,  love  watching  them 
work,  and  took  many  pictures  of  them 
taking  pictures.  I  am  putting  together 
a  series  of  photographs  of  only  pa- 
parazzi for  a  future  exhibition." 


Contributing  editor  Marjorie  Williams 

returns  to  active  duty,  after  a 

six-month  maternity  leave  for  her  second 

child,  with  a  report  on  page  54 

about  the  rampant  animosities  behind 

the  changing  of  the  guard  at 

The  New  Repub'ic.  "Covering  journalists 

is  familiar,  but  more  difficult 

than  covering  politicians,"  Williams 

- !    '  They  know  the  ropes 

Protective." 


24 


Michael  Elliott  is  the  editor  of  News- 
week International  and  the  author  of  I 
Tlie  Day  Before  Yesterday:  Reconsider- 
ing America's  Past,  Rediscovering  the' 
Present,  which  is  being  published  by 
Simon  &  Schuster  this  month  and  is  -. 
excerpted  on  page  40.  His  book,  El 
liott  says,  "tries  to  explain  why  things 
aren't  as  bad  as  we  think." 

"For  everyone  who  has  any  interest  I 
in    mountain    climbing,    there    are 
many  controversial  issues  that  have  i 
emerged  from  the  disaster  on  Mount  I 
Everest,"    says   contributing   editor 
Jennet    Conant,    who    writes    this  i 
month   about   Sandy   Hill   Pittman,  . 
the  socialite-climber  caught  in  the:] 
May  storm  that  killed  eight  people 
on   the   world's   highest   mountain.    ] 
"But  Sandy  Pittman,  because  she  is  • 
such  a  colorful  character,  personifies 
some  of  the  best  and  worst  aspects  - 
of  high-altitude  adventuring." 

In  this  issue,  contributing  editor  Bruce 
Feirstein  targets  Washington,  D.C., 
with  his  sixth   installment  of  "True 
Lies."    "Of  course,   Washington   al- 
ready publishes  its  own  'True  Lies'! 
every  year,"  says  Feirstein.  "The  fed-  : 
eral  budget."  Feirstein  co-wrote  the! 
screenplay  for  Goldeneye  and  is  at  J 
work  on  the  next  James  Bond  movie.  | 
(Continued  on  page  28)  ] 

VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


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LTTTLE  BY  LITTLE, 


LESS  LIKE  ART 
AND  MORE  LIKE  TRASH. 

There  are  toxic  chemicals  in 
our  water.  Such  as  oil.  And  pesti- 
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You  might  think  industry 
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of  the  problem.  You  and  I,  in  our 
everyday  lives,  are  also  responsi- 
ble for  a  tremendous  amount  of 
water  pollution. 

However,  we  can  all  help  pro- 
tect our  water.  For  example,  use 
less  toxic  household  cleaners  and 
practice  natural  lawn  care  by 
composting  and  using  fewer 
chemicals.  And  instead  of  pour- 
ing used  motor  oil  onto  the 
ground  or  into  storm  drains,  sim- 
ply take  it  to  a  gasoline  station 
where  it  can  be  recycled. 

To  find  out  more,  call 
1-800-504-8484,  and  we'll  send 
you  additional  information  on 
how  you  can  help  protect  our 
rivers,  lakes  and  oceans. 

That  way  we  can  turn  this 
terribie  tide  around.  And  restore 
the  beauty  to  our  water. 

CLEAN  WAIER. 

IFWEALLDOAIJTTLE, 

WECANDOALOT. 


Natural  Resources 
.  Defense  Council   "■ 

J  A  Public  Service  of 
Couicil  This  Publication 


i  DiiiriiHiiiirs 

(Continued  from  page  24) 


Contributing  editor  Alex  Shoumatoff—  above,  with  the  Dalai  Lama 

in  India — investigates  on  page  98  the  kidnapping  of  the  seven-year-old  boy  whom 

the  Dalai  Lama  has  declared  to  be  the  reincarnation  of  the  Panchen  Lama, 

Tibet's  second-most-powerful  religious  leader.  Shoumatoff 's  10th  book.  Legends  of  the 

Desert,  will  be  published  next  year  by  Knopf. 


Contributing  editor  George  Wayne  is 

feverishly  editing  the  next  issue  of  his 
avant-garde  style  journal,  ROME., 
due  out  in  September. 

Photojournalist  Jeffrey  Aaronson  has 

made  nearly  50  trips  to  Asia  over  the 
past  16  years;  two  of  the  most  in- 
teresting were  for  this  month's  V.F., 
to  Tibet  and  Nepal.  Based  in  As- 
pen, Aaronson  travels  around  the 
world  for  such  publications  as  Time, 
Newsweek,  and  Condi  Nast  Traveler. 


Eika  Aoshima's  signature 

style  is  that  she  has  no  signature  style: 

"I  want  my  photographs  to 

look  like  spontaneous  snapshots." 

she  says.  This  month 

hi  photographs  artist-director  Julian 

i  he/  on  page  112,  and 

Uison  Elliott  on  page  63. 


28 


N 

Photographer  David  Seidner 

is  making  his  debut  as  an  editor 

and  art  director  with 

Lisa  Fonssagrives:  Three  Decades  of 

Classic  Fashion  Photographs, 

to  be  published  this  fall  by 

the  Vendome  Press.  His  portraits  of 

actress  Kyra  Sedgwick  appear 

on  pages  96  and  91. 

Bob  Colacello  first  met  Julian  Schna- 
bel  around  1979,  when  he  and  Andy 
Warhol  put  the  young  artist  in  Inter- 
view. Previewing  Schnabel's  movie- 
directing  debut,  which  looks  back  at 
the  tragically  short  career  of  artist 
Jean-Michel  Basquiat  and  the  frenzy 
of  the  1980s  art  world,  contributing 
editor  Colacello  says  that  "what  Julian 
captures  in  the  film  was  Basquiat's 
ability  to  bring  out  obvious  affection 
in  Andy.  If  he  were  alive,  I  bet  Andy 
would  be  really  jealous  of  this  film." 

Laura  Jacobs  is  the  author  of  The 
Art  of  Haute  Couture  (Abbeville)  and 
a  V.F.  contributing  editor. 

VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


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VAMITY  FAIR 


EdiEor  in  Chief  GRAYDON  CARTER 


mate 


nihtr 


Managing  EdiEor  chris  garrett    Art  Director  david  Harris 

Executive  Literary  Editor  wayne  lawson    Executive  Editor  elise  oshaughnessy 

Features  Editor  jane  sarkin 

Senior  Articles  Editors  george  hodgman.  douglas  stumpf 

Legal  Affairs  EdiEor  Robert  walsh    Senior  EdiEors  aimee  bell,  matthew  tyrnauer 

Fashion  DirecEor  Elizabeth  saltzman    PhoEography  DirecEor  susan  white 

Special  Correspondents  dominick  dunne,  bob  colac  ello.  mal'reen  orth.  bryan  burrough 

Writer-at-Large  marie  brennlr 

Special  Projects  Editor  reinaldo  herrera    Consultant  Style  Editor  andre  leon  talley 

London  Editor  henry  porter    Washington  Editor  dee  dee  myers    West  Coast  Editor  krista  smith 

Assistant  Managing  Editor  ann  powell    Deputy  Art  Director  Gregory  mastrianni 

Associate  Editors  E.  e.  osborne.  susan  kittenplan 

Copy  Editor  peter  devine    Associate  Copy  Editor  allison  a.  merrill 

Production  Director  ellen  kiell 

Research  Editor  Patricia  j.  singer    Deputy  Research  Editor  john  banta 

Research  Associates  james  buss,  peter  d  hyman.  john  kearney 

Assistant  to  the  Editor  in  Chief  Liz  welch    Editorial  Business  Manager  mersini  stratakos 

Market  Editors  tina  skouras.  mary  f  braeunig    Designer  mimi  dutta    Art  Assistant  john  dixon 

Features  Associate  beth  p.  altschull    Vanities  Associate  riza  cruz    Style  Coordinator  kathryn  MacLEOH 

Editorial  Associates  felice  barash.  dana  n  brown,  lynn  Moloney,  honor  prouty 

Editorial  Assistants  kellv  biren.  darryl  brantley.  jessica  kaminsky. 

CRAIG  OFFMAN.  SARA  SWITZER.  KATHERINE  WESTERBI.l  K 

Photo  Research  Editor  jeannie  Rhodes   Associate  Photo  Editor  lisa  berman    Photo  Associate  rebecca  titui 

Copy  Production  Manager  dede  dfmoss 

Copy  Production  Assistant  martha  hurled    Art  Production  Associate  Christopher  george 

Contributing  Editors  judy  bachrach,  ann  louise  bardach,  Leslie  Bennetts,  h  g  bissinger.  Howard  blumi 

ANDREW  COCKBURN.  LESLIE  COCKBURN.  AMY  FINE  COLLINS.  NANCY  COLLINS.  JENNET  CONANT. 

BEATRICE  MONTI  DELLA  CORTE.  RUPERT  EVERETT.  BRUCE  FEIRSTEIN.  STEPHEN  FRIED.  LLOYD  GROVE. 

DAVID  HALBERSTAM.  EDWARD  W.  HAYES.  CHRISTOPHER  HITCHENS.  C\TH\    HORYN.  LAURA  JACOBS.  DAVID  KAMP.f 

ED  KLEIN.  MICHAEL  LUTIN,  DAVID  MARGOLICK.  KIM  MASTERS.  ANNE  McNALLY,  RICHARD  MERKIN.  ANDREW  NEILJ 

EIAMMETTA  ROCCO.  JOHN  RYMAN.  KEVIN  SESSUMS.  GAII   SHEEHY.  MICHAEL  SHNAYERSON.  ALEX  SHOUMATOFF.M 

HAMILTON  SOUTH.  DIANE  VON  FURSTENBFRG.  HEATHER  WATTS.  MARJORIE  WILLIAMS.  TOBY  YOUNG 

Contributing  Photographers  ANNIE  leibovitz.  Helmut  newton.  herb  ritts. 

SNOWDON.  JONATHAN  BECKER.  HARRY  BENSON,  MICHEL  COMTE.  DAFYDD  JONES.  FIROOZ  ZAHEDI 

Contributing  Artists  tim  SHEAFFER,  Robert  risko 
Contributing  Editor  ( Los  Angeles)  wendy  stark  morrissey    Contributing  Stylists  lori  Goldstein,  kim  meepJJ 
Director  of  Special  Projects  sara  marks    Paris  Associate  veronique  plazolles 
Director  of  Public  Relations  beth  kseniak    Deputy  Director  of  Public  Relations  anina  c  mahoneyI] 


Publisher  MITCHELL  B.  FOX 


Associate  Publisher  paul  j  tlrcotte 

Advertising  Director  NANCV  <    i  VNDSMAN 

Creative  Services  Director  jean  m  karlson 

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VANITY  FAIR/AUGUST  19 


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Letters 


tice  for  Nicole  and  Ron,  but  don't  see 
it,  and  that  is  a  damned  shame. 

JULIETTE  HANDLEY 

Stowe.  Vermont 

There  is  something  ghoulish  about  the 
fascination  that  murder  trials  hold  for 
Dominick  Dunne.  He  seems  to  feel  that 
he  is  entitled  to  act  as  judge  and  jury 
when  the  outcome  is  not  to  his  taste. 
Someone  should  explain  to  him  that  O.  J. 
Simpson  was  acquitted  by  a  jury,  legally, 
and  fair  and  square,  whether  Mr.  Dunne 
agrees  with  the  verdict  or  not. 

CHRISTINE  ROUSE 
San  Francisco.  California 

Dominick  Dunne's  insightful  reporting 
about  O.  J.  Simpson  in  Vanity  Fair  over 
the  last  year  has  been  a  revelation.  Mon- 
ey, influence,  and  celebrity  are  prizes  de- 
voutly sought  in  this  society,  and  we  now 
hold  their  truths  to  be  more  self-evident 
than  that  of  being  created  equal  under 
the  law.  That  so  many  African-Ameri- 
cans believe  that  the  acquittal  of  O.  J. 
Simpson  assuaged  the  police  brutality 
leveled  against  Rodney  King  and  untold 
others  frankly  astounds  me.  For  20  years, 
O.  J.  Simpson  has  enjoyed  a  lifestyle  and 
celebrity  unknown  to  the  majority  of 
Americans.  He  represents  a  tiny  fraction 
of  the  population.  He  is  a  rich,  famous 
man  who  got  away  with  murder. 

SHARON  WALLACE  WHEAT 
Oakland,  California 


Mouna-Struck 

I've  lived  in  Palm  Beach  and  Beverly 
Hills,  flown  on  private  jets,  hobnobbed 
\\  ith   royalty,   partied   on   mega-yachts. 


owned  a  Rolls-Royce  Corniche,  drunk  I 
Cristal,  kept  time  with  a  Rolex,  and 
traveled  with  Louis  Vuitton  carry-ons, 
yet  until  I  read  the  article  on  Mouna  Al- 
Rashid  ["Full  Mouna  Rising,"  by  Bob) 
Colacello,  June],  I  never  realized  that  II 
could  be  so  totally  turned  off  by  over-| 
the-top    excess    and    conspicuous    con- 
sumption. Mouna  AJ-Rashid  is  obviously 
searching  for  something  that  she  doesn't 
own  and  can't  buy:  a  strong  sense  of  self. 
Excuse  me  while  I  dump  my  designer 
duds  so  that  I  can  shimmy  back  into  ai 
nicely  worn  pair  of  Lee  jeans  and  cow- 
boy boots. 

TAMARA  JEANNE! 
Palm  Beach.  Florida  | 

I  thought  that  such  gross  displays  of  deca- 
dence existed  only  in  fiction  and  film. 
Separate  rooms  for  winter  Chanel?  Sum- 
mer Chanel?  Chanel  accessories?  Non- 
Chanels?  Of  course,  I  have  nothing  against; 
wealth  and  good  fashion,  but  such  an  ex- 
treme lack  of  discretion  is  truly  repulsive.  ( 

BRIAN  FRANKLIN' 
Rantoul,  Illinois | 

Regarding  Mouna  Al-Rashid,  three 
words  come  to  mind:  shallow,  shallow, 
and,  furthermore,  shallow. 

GEORGE  A.  BANOSLINDNER 
Houston.  Texas 


Irving  Unveiled 


Intellectual  dishonesty  pervades  Christo- 
pher Hitchens's  comments  on  the  well-J 
known  Holocaust  denier  and  Nazi  apokn 
gist  David  Irving  ["Hitler's  Ghost,"  June]. 
Evidence  of  Irving's  anti-SemitisrrJ 
can  be  found  not  only  in  stray  remarks!  M 


36 


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but  also  in  a  pattern  of  bias  and  deceit 
which  characterizes  his  career  as  a 
whole.  Hitchens  should  consult  the 
speeches  Irving  has  made  over  the  past 
13  years  for  the  Institute  for  Historical 
Review,  the  leading  Holocaust-denial 
outfit  in  the  world. 

David  Irving  has  every  right  to  make 
outrageous  statements,  and  Christopher 
Hitchens  likewise  has  every  right  to  de- 
fend him.  But  their  readers  also  have  a 
right  to  know  the  truth. 

ABRAHAM  H.  FOXMAN 

National  director 

Anti-Defamation  League  of  B'nai  B'rith 

New  York,  New  York 

Christopher  Hitchens  has  touched  on  a 
curious  fear  in  the  Goebbels-biography 
uproar  which  is  paralleled  in  the  con- 
cealment of  Third  Reich  art.  Even  Hitler 
displayed  the  work  of  his  cultural  ene- 
mies, albeit  in  vicious  degradation,  at  the 
Degenerate  Art  exhibition  of  1937.  It 
was  the  most  popular  exhibition  during 
the  Reich,  but  not  for  the  Nazis'  intend- 
ed reasons.  How  can  serious  critics,  his- 
torians, and  publishers  be  so  willing  not 
to  know?  It  is  a  totalitarian  tactic  to 
hide,  debase,  or  destroy  documentation 
because  of  the  researcher's  perceived  po- 
litical bent.  Re-examination  and  debate 
are  what  define  scholarship,  and  enlight- 
enment can  come  from  any  source. 

ROBERT  VON  DASSANOWSKY 

Colorado  Springs.  Colorado 

Daniel  Goldhagen's  notion  that  German 
anti-Semitic  prejudice  was  the  sole  ene- 
my is  demonstrably  false,  and  both  Raul 
Hilberg  and  Hitchens  are  reasonable  in 
their  judgment:  "If  these  people  want  to 
speak,  let  them." 

HANS  ASKENASY 
Laguna  Beach.  California 


A  Familiar  Tune 


Reading  Peter  Duchin's  "O  Lucky  Man" 
[June]  was  like  bumping  into  old  friends 
at  a  cocktail  party. 

JILL  M.  ISHKANIAN 
Santa  Barbara.  California 


The  Peters  Principle 

Your  detailed  article  on  the  machina- 
tions behind  the  careers  of  Jon  Peters 
and  Peter  Guber  ["The  Gold  Diggers," 
by  Kim  Masters  and  Nancy  Griffin, 
was  compelling  primarily  in  its 
to  render  its  subjects  thoroughly 


loathsome.  Only  in  the  "creative"  nexu 
of  Hollywood  would  marginally  talentei 
buffoons  such  as  Peters  and  Guber  b 
able  to  sustain  the  illusion  for  so  long 

SHARON  LANGWORTm 

Chicago.  Illinoi 

Jon  Peters  is  the  epitome  of  the  sever 
deadly  sins,  and  an  extreme  example  o 
our  skewed  American  value  system 
which  places  wealth  and  power  above  al  f 
else.  Unfortunately,  he  hasn't  learned  tha 
the  only  things  of  value  in  this  life  are  in 
tangible.  They  are  things  such  as  love, 
generosity,  compassion,  and  spirituality 
While  I  have  none  of  his  wealth  or  power . 
I  am  richer  than  Jon  Peters  will  ever  be 

CHRISTINE  CARP. | 

Denver.  Coloradc 


Hot  Rodman 


I  was  offended  by  the  vulgar  content  ob 
George  Wayne's  "interview"  with  Dennis 
Rodman  in  the  June  issue  ["Dennis  2  So- 
ciety"]. Language  like  that  may  be  appro- 
priate in  a  locker  room,  but  not  on  the 
pages  of  a  general-circulation  magazine 

ROBERT  KIGGINS^ 
Santa  Fe,  New  Mexico.) 

I  usually  enjoy  the  monthly  "Vanities"' 
interview,  knowing  full  well  its  devil's  s 
advocate  ploy.   The   interview  Georgee 
Wayne  had  with  Dennis  Rodman,  how- 
ever, was  totally  tasteless  and  insultin; 
to  its  readers. 

CYNTHIA  RAYBURN 
Lake  City.  Florid; 

Next  time  you  consider  wallowing  in 
the  mud,  you  might  remember  this  valu- 
able advice:  Never  wrestle  with  a  pig.1 
You  both  get  dirty,  and  the  pig  likes  it, 

MARCY  COGLIANES 

Oshkosh,  Wisconsi: 


igh  Fair 


is 


I'm  from  the  old  school,  not  the  kind 
person  who  passes  compliments  around 
gratuitously.   Vanity  Fair  deserves  accc 
lades  and  big  applause.  It  is  flying  hig 
with  the  eagles. 

SAMUEL  KOMOROFF 
Brooklyn,  New  YorM 

Letters  to  the  editor  should  be  sent  with  tha 
writer's  name,  address,  and  daytime  phonq 
number  to:  The  Editor,  Vanity  Fair,  350  Mad 
ison  Avenue,  New  York,  New  York  10017.  Ad 
dress  electronic  mail  to  vfmail@vf.com.  Th^ 
letters  chosen  for  publication  may  be  edite 
for  length  and  clarity. 

VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  ]99i 


wr 


-X'^Jfc  ■*">*: 


and  drink  so  much  skim  milk.  . . 

you  know  that  thing  that  weakens  your  bones  and  can  make  you  looftyJ^vNr^r 


III^T-^M-  lli'lH  L*lll 


I  !■ -tn_  IvaI  ■  L * 


r  laMY^ 


V  APPEARING  IN 

atilda 


MILK 

Where's  your  mustache?" 

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AMERICA  AGONISTES 


A  hundred  years  ago,  the  U.S.  strode  onto  the 

global  stage — and  remained  there  like  a  colossus.  If  America  can 

conquer  its  nostalgia  for  the  glorious  Golden  Age  that 

followed  World  War  II,  it  could  well  own  the  next  century  too 

BY  MICHAEL  ELLIOTT 


n  August  1974,  a  few  days  after 
Richard  Nixon  had  resigned  as  pres- 
ident, I  left  Britain  to  take  up  a  post 
at  Northwestern  University  School 
of  Law,  in  Chicago.  That  summer, 
for  some  reason  now  long  forgot- 
ten, the  che  barter  flights  to 
America  were  Lon- 
don. So  on  ai 
lugged  my  suite 

train  at  Victoria  Statu 

from   Dover,  watch 

grow  ghostly  in  the  moon 

made  my  way  to  Orly  airport. 

There  we  were  told  that  the  flight  was 

40 


to  leave  12  hours  late.  This  was  common- 
place for  charters,  but  for  me  it  was  little 
short  of  calamitous.  Instead  of  arriving  at 
Kennedy  airport  at  two  o'clock  in  the  af- 
ternoon, to  be  met  (I  hoped)  by  an  Amer- 
ican friend,  I  would  arrive  at  two  in  the 
morning,  with  nobody  to  welcome  me. 

At  J.F.K.  I  was  out  of  my  depth:  I 

had  flown  only  a  handful  of  times,  so 

had  little  idea  of  how  to  handle  big  air- 

>rts.  Sensing  my  unease,  a  student  who 

n  on  the  flight  approached  me. 

had  just  spent  his  junior  year  of  col- 

n  Paris,  and  invited  me  home  for 

ght.  It  was  now  three  a.m.;  a  friend 


had  come  to  meet  him,  and  so  we  piled 
into  the  car  and  headed  off  into  the 
Long  Island  darkness. 

I  had  no  idea  where  we  were  going, 
but  half  an  hour  later  we  arrived  at  a 
big  house— at  least,  it  looked  big  to 
me.  My  new  friend's  mother  welcomed 
her  unexpected  guest,  and  showed  me 
to  a  spare  room.  I  woke  about  five 
hours  later  and,  following  the  sound  of 
chatter,  walked  downstairs,  through  a 
kitchen,  and  out  onto  a  patio  where  the 

Excerpted  from  The  Day  Before  Yesterday, 

by  Michael  Elliott,  published  by 

Simon  &  Schuster;  ©  1996  by  the  author. 

VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


GI0RGI07ARMAN1 


COLLEZI 


family  were  having  breakfast.  I  gulped; 
and  I  mean,  literally,  I  gulped. 

Anyone  who  grew  up  in  Europe  would 
know  why.  Though  Europe— Britain  espe- 
cially has  weather  of  seemingly  infinite 
variety,  there  are  limits.  Europe  doesn't 
have  the  hot,  still  day  dripping  with  hu- 
midity; even  on  the  Mediterranean  coast, 
heat  is  moderated  by  dryness  or 
sea  breezes.  But  this  was  mid- 
August,  and  this  was  Long  Island, 
and  that  was  how  it  was.  And  so  I 
stood  on  the  patio  and,  looking 
over  the  heads  of  my  hosts,  saw 
a  long,  perfect  lawn 
swoop  down  to  a  pool, 
and  then  to  a  dock, 
beyond  which  I  could 
make  out,  shimmering 
in  a  heat  haze,  a  blue- 
gray  expanse  of  water: 
Long  Island  Sound. 

We  were  in  Great 
Neck.  I  knew  about 
Great  Neck.  I  knew 
The  Great  Gatsby  al- 
most by  heart,  and  I 
knew  that  I  was  now— 
as  Fitzgerald  put  it— on 
"a  fresh,  green  breast 
of  the  new  world," 
looking  at  "the  most 
domesticated  body  of 
salt  water  in  the  West- 
ern hemisphere."  The 
house  was  owned  by  a 
liberal,  Jewish  labor 
lawyer  from  New  York.  I  sat  down  and 
was  offered  breakfast.  I  hate  breakfasts, 
and  mumble  through  them  to  the  dis- 
comfort of  anyone  sharing  a  table  with 
me.  This  was  the  only  one  in  my  life 
whose  details  I  can  remember,  and  I  can, 
as  if  it  had  happened  yesterday. 

Coffee  of  a  freshness  and  flavor'  un- 
like anything  I  had  ever  known  was 
poured  from  huge  pots.  Orange  juice 
came  in  massive  jugs.  This  was  new  to 
me.  In  Britain  in  1974,  frozen  orange 
juice  was  a  rare  luxury;  it  came  in  cans 
not  much  bigger  than  a  roll  of  quarters.  I 
was  shown  how  to  eat  lox  and  bagels;  I 
knew  about  cream  cheese,  just  barely,  but 
I  didn't  know  you  ate  it  with  fish.  Scram- 
bled eggs,  sausages— the  food  and  the 
drink  kept  coming  as  if  someone  had 
tipped  a  giant  horn  of  plenty  into  m 

Later,  in  tarveled  nol  just 

at  the  gadgetry  but  ai  iheer,  numb- 

ing size  of  everything.  Refrigerators  big 
enough  to  rs,  a  televi- 

sion (in  the  med  to  be 

telephones  every  ,l(j 

friends  whose  famili  ve  one. 

42 


For  years,  the  house  in  Great  Neck 
epitomized  two  things  for  me.  The  first 
was  America's  generosity  of  spirit.  My 
hosts  displayed  a  neighborliness  toward 
me,  despite  the  fact  that  I  was  not  a 
neighbor  at  all.  Second,  the  house  sym- 
bolized what  it  meant  to  be  "modern." 
Everything  in  it  was  new,  or  seemed  so. 
Everything  was  light; 
there  was  no  stained 
brown  furniture,  no 
heavy  curtains.  Every- 
thing was  big.  A  day 
later,  in  Chicago,  the 


By  1945,  every  other 

leading  nation 

was  knee-deep  in  rubble. 

Below,  in  Newport, 

Rhode  Island,  circa 

1961,  the  good  life 

that  most  countries  could 

only  dream  of. 


sense  of  wonderment  continued.  Most 
Americans  grow  up  blase  about  skyscrap- 
ers. But  the  Sears  Tower  and  the  John 
Hancock  building  were  newly  finished: 
as  I  drove  in  from  O'Hare  they  loomed 
on  the  hazy  skyline  like  fat  giraffes. 

I  didn't  know  it  then,  but  the  America  I 
saw  in  1974  was  about  to  vanish,  and 
with  it  a  golden  age  in  American  his- 
tory. The  Golden  Age  that  began  in 
1945  and  ended  in  the  early  1970s  took 
its  ineffable  shape  only  because  of  a 
conjunction  of  circumstances  which 
formed  a  society  of  a  strength,  inside 
and  outside  its  borders,  that  had  not 
been  seen  anywhere  in  modern  times. 
And  though  that  period  was  an  aberra- 
tion, it  has  become  the  great,  defining 
landard  against  which  Americans  think 
thing  should  be  measured.  This 
has  placed  unbearable  demands  on 
Americans  great  and  small,  leaders  and 
followers.  It  has  also  made  it  painfully 
diffu  lit  for  them  to  get  an  adequate  fix 
on  times  in  which  they  now  live,  or 
to   i   '  ierstand  a  curious,   salient   fact 


about  their  lives:  they  are  miserable. 
Americans  whine.  More  than  60  per- 
cent of  them  routinely  tell  pollsters  that 
they  are  "dissatisfied  with  the  way 
things  are  going  in  the  United  States." 
A  whole  new  academic  subdiscipline— 
the  anatomy  of  American  decline— has 
come  into  being.  One  best-seller  of  the 
early  1990s  had  the  simple  and  arrest- 
ing title  America:  What  Went  Wrong? 

At  first  blush,  this  mood  of  national 
angst  is  hard  to  fathom.  America  is  far 
and  away  the  largest  and  richest  econo- 
my on  the  earth.  It  is  the  only  one  of  the 
"supernations"— those 
which  cover  great 
landmasses— blessed 
with  a  uniformly  be- 
nign climate;  there 
isn't  a  single  state  in 
the  lower  48  where  it 
is  anything  but  easy  to 
grow  that  staple  of 
civilization  the  hum- 
ble potato.  America  is 
blissfully  empty.  Fly 
from  Chicago  to  San 
Francisco  and  great 
spaces  of  unpeopled 
land  stretch  out  be- 
low—emptinesses of  a 
kind  that  are  simply 
unknown  elsewhere  in 
the  developed  world. 
In  the  Rocky  Moun- 
■■!■■  tain  States,  at  the  end 

of  a  tumultuous  pe- 
riod of  population  growth,  a  little  more 
than  14  million  people  live  on  a  swath  of 
land  about  the  size  of  Western  Europe; 
more  than  300  million  Europeans  are 
packed  into  the  same  amount  of  space. 

Uniquely  among  all  the  great  nations, 
the  United  States  is  insulated  by  two 
oceans  from  the  world's  trouble  spots.  It 
has  avoided  any  invasion  of  its  mainland 
by  a  foreign  power  for  nearly  two  cen- 
turies, and  were  some  power  foolish 
enough  to  try,  the  United  States  could 
swat  it  like  an  irritating  fly.  True,  one 
other  country— Russia— has  the  nuclear 
capability  to  threaten  anyone  it  chooses. 
But  America  has  a  full  arsenal  of  the 
really  useful  hardware:  the  spy  satellites, 
the  huge  airplanes  and  ships  that  can 
project  its  strength  across  the  world,  the 
technological  base  which  gives  humble 
G.I.'s  the  kind  of  equipment  that  only 
recently  was  the  stuff  of  science  fiction. 
In  most  of  the  key  technologies  of  to- 
morrow—computers, telecommunications, 
advanced  materials— American  firms  are 
world-beaters.  In  a  growth  industry  such 
as  entertainment,  American  products  are 

VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


so  dominant  that  there  is  a  genuine 
risk  of  backlash  against  Yankee  neocolo- 
nialism. In  all  the  ways  that  count,  Amer- 
icans are,  as  the  historian  David  Potter 
wrote  in  1954,  a  "people  of  plenty."  So 
what  makes  them  so  miserable? 

A  billboard  I  once  saw  on  the  road 
from  the  airport  into  Tulsa,  Oklahoma, 
captures  the  mood  of  the  United  States 
in  the  1990s:  America  the  way  you  re- 
member it.  That  sad  little  phrase  holds 
the  key  to  understanding  why  America 
is  an  unhappy  place. 

Americans  assume  that  the  years  af- 
ter World  War  II  were  "normal,"  so 
that  any  deviation  from  them  is  ren- 
dered somehow  peculiar.  But  there  was 
nothing  normal  about  the  world  that 
America  inherited  in  1945— unless  "nor- 
mality" means  a  state  where  every  oth- 
er nation  is  knee-deep  in  rubble.  Alone 
among  the  belligerents  of  World  War 
II,  America  avoided  physical  devasta- 
tion: no  Stalingrad,  no  Caen,  no  Coven- 
try; no  Monte  Cassino,  no  Dresden,  no 
Hiroshima.  At  the  war's  end,  America 
accounted  for  40  percent  of  the  world's 
output,  a  higher  proportion  than  a  sin- 
gle nation  had  ever  had  before. 

In  the  years  that  followed  victory, 
American  society  was  more  cohesive 
than  it  had  ever  been.  An  external  threat 
from  Soviet  Communism  provided  an 
important  unifying  force.  In  the  South, 
blacks  led  a  peaceful  revolution  which 
ameliorated  the  most  bitter  divisions  be- 
tween the  races  and  ended  legally  pro- 
tected discrimination.  A  husband  could 
earn  enough  to  support  a  family,  a  wife 
could  afford  to  stay  at  home  and  raise  a 
few  kids,  and  divorce  was  still  stigma- 
tized and— at  least  by  comparison  with 
what  came  later— quite  rare. 

On  the  twin  rocks  of  its  economic 
and  military  might,  America  built  a 'soci- 
ety that  was  the  envy  of  the  world— a  so- 
ciety in  which  ordinary  working  people 
could  enjoy  an  unmatched  standard  of 
living,  with  spacious  homes  and  modern 
appliances.  Other  nations  were  kept  at 
bay,  like  children  with  their  noses 
pressed  to  the  window,  watching  a  party 
to  which  they  have  not  been  invited.  Im- 
migration was  insignificant.  America  was 
essentially  self-sufficient  and  scarcely 
bothered  with  the  business  of  exporting. 

One  way  to  capture  just  how  golden 
were  the  years  after  World  War  II  is 
to  play  a  little  thought  experiment. 
Think  what  one  word— "Detroit"— meant 
in  1945,  and  what  it  represents  50  years 
later.  In  the  1940s,  Detroit  was  at  the 
center  of  the  greatest  concentration  of 


applied  science  and  technology  that  the 
world  had  ever  seen.  The  crown  jewel  of 
that  brilliance  was  a  bomber  plant  built 
by  the  Ford  Motor  Company  at  Willow 
Run,  15  miles  from  Detroit  along  the 
new  Industrial  Expressway,  which  ran 
westward  from  the  city  across  the 
bumpy,  glaciated  land  that  surrounds 
the  Great  Lakes.  The  plant  was  also 
near  the  town  of  Ann  Arbor,  home  of 
the  University  of  Michigan.  Ground  had 
been  broken  in  April  1941,  and  the  enor- 
mous factory,  almost  three-quarters  of  a 
mile  long,  was  finished  by  January  1942. 
In  its  first  year  of  operations  Willow 
Run  was  beset  by  difficulties.  Though 
many  of  its  workers  were  local,  demand 
for  wartime  labor  in  Michigan  was  so 
great  that  thousands  more  had  to  be  re- 
cruited in  the  South  and  Appalachia;  lo- 


told  the  American  president  that  Ger- 
many was  being  buried  by  Detroit's 
steel.  He  had  good  reason  to  think  so; 
many  of  the  engines  in  the  Red  Army's 
tanks  had  been  made  in  Michigan. 

Local  people  were  intensely  proud  of 
the  region's  accomplishments.  In  1946, 
Malcolm  W.  Bingay,  a  veteran  editor  of 
the  Detroit  Free  Press,  wrote  that  "for 
years  Detroit  has  been  the  talk  of  the 
world.  European  writers  on  our  civiliza- 
tion even  coined  the  term  'Detroitism,' 
meaning  the  industrial  age.  From  all 
parts  of  the  globe,  men  have  come  to 
our  doors  to  gain  knowledge  and  inspira- 
tion. Detroit  has  been  hailed  as  Detroit 
the  Dynamic;  Detroit  the  Wonder  City." 

The  hyperbole  was  justified.  A  Euro- 
pean visiting  Michigan  in  those  days 
would  have  stood  amazed.  In  Europe, 


In  all  the  ways  that  count,  Americans  are  a 
people  of  plenty.  So  what  makes  them  so  miserable? 


cals  still  sometimes  refer  to  Ypsilanti,  the 
closest  town,  as  "Ypsitucky."  Some  of  the 
hillbillies  couldn't  adapt  to  assembly-line 
work;  others,  housed  under  spartan  con- 
ditions in  makeshift  villages  built  on  the 
edge  of  the  plant,  gambled,  drank,  and 
whored  their  time  away.  Mosquitoes 
swarmed  through  the  plant  until  Ford  im- 
ported a  bug-eating  fish  which  Mussolini 
had  found  useful  in  the  Pontine  marshes 
of  Italy.  But  the  kinks  were  ironed  out: 
by  1943,  at  its  peak,  Willow  Run  was 
employing  more  than  40,000  people;  by 
1944  those  workers  were  turning  out  a 
B-24  every  hour.  By  the  time  production 
ceased  in  1945,  Willow  Run  had  become 
an  authentic  American  success.  All  told, 
it  produced  nearly  9.000  B-24s. 

Willow  Run  was  just  the  most  visible 
manifestation  of  a  wartime  transforma- 
tion of  Michigan's  automotive  industry. 
As  Detroit  and  its  environs  became  the 
arsenal  of  democracy,  the  University  of 
Michigan  played  its  part.  Ann  Arbor's 
researchers  worked  on  scores  of  govern- 
ment contracts;  the  labs  hummed  with 
work  on  advanced  materials  and  on 
guided  missiles  designed  to  intercept  en- 
emy aircraft.  In  fact,  when  the  war  was 
done,  G.I.'s  from  Michigan  returned  to 
tell  their  families  that  the  Germans  had 
never  heard  of  Ypsilanti— but  they  knew 
all  about  Willow  Run  and  its  bombers. 
According  to  local  folklore,  when  Stalin 
met  Franklin  Roosevelt  at  the  Teheran 
Conference  n,     943    the  Soviet  leader 


for  example,  university  education  had  al- 
ways been  reserved  for  an  elite.  By 
1948,  while  servicemen  were  cashing  in 
their  right  to  higher  education  under  the 
G.I.  Bill,  the  University  of  Michigan 
had  no  fewer  than  21,000  students. 

And  a  European  visitor  might  have 
noticed  the  cars  on  the  Industrial  Ex- 
pressway itself— and  who  was  in  them. 
When  Willow  Run  was  planned,  it  was 
assumed  that  new  bus  lines  from  De- 
troit to  the  plant  would  be  needed;  it 
was  wartime,  and  both  tires  and  gaso- 
line were  rationed.  But  the  Detroit 
Street  Railways  company  soon  realized 
that  the  buses  were  uneconomical.  A 
newspaper  report  in  1945  said  they  nev- 
er carried  "even  a  sizable  fraction"  of 
Willow  Run's  workers,  because  the 
workers  were  prosperous  enough  to  use 
their  own  cars.  In  the  mid-1 940s  there 
was  nowhere  in  Europe  where  this 
would  have  been  conceivable. 

Fifty  years  later,  the  condition  of  Bin- 
gay's  hometown  would  have  broken  his 
heart.  Over  the  intervening  decades,  the 
car  industry's  workers  and  management 
alike  got  fat,  happy,  and  lazy,  thinking 
that  they  could  keep  their  markets  until 
doomsday,  slow  to  invest  in  new  models 
and  production  processes.  Race  rela- 
tions, never  great  in  Detroit,  soured  in 
the  1960s.  After  the  awful  riots  of  1967, 
white  flight  to  the  suburbs  left  the 
city's  core  hollowed  out,  bereft  of  the 
middle-class  incomes  that  would  have 


44 


VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


LLEIIONI 


•■'<'§ 


mm 


sustained  and  increased  white-collar 
employment.  A  range  of  pathologies- 
drugs,  crime,  out-of-wedlock  births- 
gripped  those  who  were  left  in  the  in- 
ner city,  trapped  in  an  ailing  economy. 

And  so  decline  took  root.  In  1950, 
Detroit  had  nearly  two  million  people; 
in  1995  it  had  barely  one  mil- 
lion. But  though  the  population 
shrank  by  half  in  45  years,  the 
number  of  murders  and  man- 
slaughters increased  fourfold.  In 
1995  there  were  461  homicides 
in  Detroit.  America's  "crum- 
bling infrastructure"  has  be- 
come one  of  the 
journalistic  cliches 
of  the  age,  but  the 
concrete  of  Detroit 
deserves  the  adjec- 
tive. A  drive  along 
one  of  the  city's 
bumpy,  wide  boule- 
vards—dodging the 
whores  who  stand 
in  the  streets  at  all 
hours,  in  all  weath- 
ers—is like  negotiat- 
ing a  minefield.  Off 
the  main  roads,  fine 
19th-century  homes 
are  boarded  up, 
half  burned  (on  the 
night  before  Hal- 
loween each  year, 
fires  are  set  all  over 
town).  In  the  sum- 
mer the  inner-city  housing  reeks  of  de- 
cay and  urine;  in  the  winter  damp  the 
city  almost  visibly,  dripping ly,  corrodes. 
The  73-story  Renaissance  Center,  built 
at  the  behest  of  Ford  Motors  in  1977  at 
a  cost  of  $350  million,  was  sold  last 
spring  for  what  was  said  to  be  a  rnere 
$75  million. 

American  journalists  like  to  say  that 
the  frontier  between  San  Diego,  Cali- 
fornia, and  Tijuana,  Mexico,  is  a  unique 
meeting  place  of  wealth  and  poverty, 
of  the  developed  and  the  developing 
worlds.  That  is  too  hard  on  Tijuana. 
For  mind-boggling  contrasts  in  the 
quality  of  life,  the  Mexican-American 
border  is  rivaled  by  the  line  that  sepa- 
rates a  suburb  such  as  Grosse  Pointe, 
with  its  faux  chateaux  and  its  country 
clubs,  from  the  horror  of  Detroit. 

All  of  this  is  familiar,  depressingly  so. 
What  is  perhaps  less  familiar— at 
least,  less  often  remarked  upon— is 
the  psychological  damage  that  was 
wrought  by  the  recent  memory  of  De- 
troit as  a  "wonder  city."  In  all  truth,  it 

46 


is  hardly  surprising  that  those  who  live 
there— and  can  recall  the  way  the  city 
once  was— should  conclude  that  Ameri- 
ca is  on  the  wrong  track. 

For  the  men  and  women  who  now 
run  America— and  were  children  or 
young  adults  when  the  nation  was  at 
its  zenith— memories  of 
the  years  after  1945  are 
extraordinarily  power- 
ful. An  older  America 
has  been  obscured  by 
the  sheer  brilliance  of 
the  postwar  era;  under- 
standing it  is  like  try- 


ing to  make  out  the  shape  of  a  distant 
shore  through  the  glare  of  bright  sun- 
shine. But  if  we  look  at  what  preceded 
the  Golden  Age,  we  may  discover  what 
led  to  that  unparalleled  prosperity 
and— no  less  important  what  the  coun- 
try has  to  do  now. 

The  muscular  bravura  of  America  in 
1945  had  deep  roots  in  a  society  which, 
since  its  founding,  had  been  both  aspi- 
rational  and  entrepreneurial.  Take  as 
but  one  example  a  small  town  in 
Kansas,  almost  dead  on  the  99th  merid- 
ian. Settled  in  1873  by  a  bunch  of 
ne'er-do-well  young  Englishmen  who 
wanted  to  hunt  foxes  among  the  cot- 
tonwoods  (and  who  predictably  named 
their  town  Victoria),  it  was  saved  from 
oblivion  by  a  hardier  bunch  entirely.  In 
1X76,  Volga  Germans  arrived  from 
Russia.  A  square-built,  determined  lot 
they  must  have  been,  if  the  statue  in 
Victoria  commemorating  them  is  accu- 
rate. And  they  rolled  up  their  sleeves 
and  got  to  work. 

Devoutly  Catholic,  the  Volga  Ger- 
mans erected  a  cross  in  the  .  mter  of 


the  village,  and  then  built  a  simple 
frame  church.  When  they  outgrew  that 
first  church,  they  built  another  one,  this 
time  of  stone.  When  they  outgrew  that, 
they  built  yet  another,  which  could  seat 
600  people.  And  in  1908,  when  only 
1,500  people  lived  in  and  around  Victo- 
ria, they  started  work  on  their  commu- 
nal masterpiece,  the  magnificent  Ro- 
manesque church  of  St.  Fidelis.  Gran- 
ite was  brought  from  Vermont;  Carrara 
marble  was  shipped  from  Italy.  Each 
family  had  to  cut  a  set  amount  of  stone 
from  local  quarries.  In  just  three 
years  the  church  was  finished.  It  was 
220  feet  long;  its 
twin  towers  soared 
141  feet  above 
the  plain.  William 
Jennings  Bryan, 
the  great  populist, 
stopped  in  the 
town  in  1912  and 
called  the  church 
"the  Cathedral  of 
the  Plains";  it  still 
deserves  the  title. 

There  are  thou- 
sands of  Victorias 
in  the  United  States 
so  many  that  we 
do  not  notice  them. 
Nor  do  we  notice 
the  corollary:  that 
there  are  so  few 
Victorias  in  the  de- 
veloped world  out- 
side the  United  States— communities 
which,  almost  within  living  memory, 
have  created  themselves  from  nothing. 
Here  lies  a  key  source  of  the  temptation 
of  exceptional  ism,  of  the  sense  that 
Americans  are  both  uniquely  blessed  and 
uniquely  capable,  such  that  any  fall  from 
grace  is  greeted  with  cries  of  woe  as  if 
the  world  had  ended.  From  John  Win- 
throp  to  Ronald  Reagan,  they  have  al- 
ways believed  that  they  were  something 
special.  "The  greatest  single  effort  of  na- 
tional deliberation  that  the  world  has 
ever  seen"  was  how  John  Adams,  for  ex- 
ample, described  the  Constitutional  Con- 
vention of  1787;  modesty  when  describ- 
ing public  achievements  has  never  been 
a  conspicuous  American  characteristic. 

But  then,  Americans  have  had  little 
to  be  modest  about.  Think,  for  a  mo- 
ment, of  the  marriage  between  brain 
and  brawn  that  Detroit  typified  in  the 
1940s.  Neither  America's  passionate 
commitment  to  education  nor  its  entre- 
preneurial drive— not  even  the  combina- 
tion of  the  two— was  a  function  pure- 
ly of  the  exigencies  of  World  War  II. 

VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


Americans  had  been  founding  universi- 
ties by  the  score  long  before  1945.  Har- 
vard was  founded  in  1636,  William  and 
Mary  in  1693,  Yale  in  1701. 

This  passion  for  higher  education 
wasn't  limited  to  a  cosmopolitan,  de- 
veloped Eastern  Seaboard.  In  eastern 
Kansas,  for  example,  the  Methodist 
Church  founded  Baker  University  at 
Baldwin  City  in  1858;  in  1865,  12  miles 
away,  the  American  Baptists  founded  a 
university  in  Ottawa;  the  next  year  the 
University  of  Kansas  was  opened  in 
Lawrence,  15  miles  north  of  Baldwin 
City.  Three  universities  opened  in  eight 
years,  within  a  little  more  than  a  day's 
trip  by  horse  and  buggy,  yet  in  1860 
the  total  population  of  Kansas  was 
barely  over  107,000. 

Just  as  higher  education  has  a  long 
pedigree,  so  does  the  energy  of  the 
American  economy.  By  1850  the  Na- 
tional Road,  financed  by  the  federal 
government,  stretched  from  east  of  the 
Appalachians  to  Vandalia,  Illinois,  link- 
ing the  seaboard  to  the  agricultural 
heartland.  The  Erie  Canal  connected 
New  York  to  the  Great  Lakes.  There  is 
a  famous  passage  in  de  Tocqueville 
worth  quoting:  "A  stranger  is  constant- 
ly amazed  by  the  immense  public  works 
executed  by  a  nation  which  contains,  so 
to  speak,  no  rich  men.  The  Americans 
arrived  but  as  yesterday  on  the  territory 
which  they  inhabit,  and  they  have  al- 
ready changed  the  whole  order  of  na- 
ture for  their  own  advantage.  They  have 
joined  the  Hudson  to  the  Mississippi, 
and  made  the  Atlantic  Ocean  commu- 
nicate with  the  Gulf  of  Mexico."  In 
short,  as  early  as  the  1830s,  capitalism 
in  the  United  States  was  simply  more 
big-muscled,  just  more  damned  thrilling 
than  anywhere  else. 

By  1851,  the  year  of  the  Great  Exhibi- 
tion in  London,  America's  industry, 
science,  and  technology  had  shaken 
the  Old  World  out  of  any  economic 
complacency.  Mid-19th-century  Ameri- 
can business  didn't  rely  just  on  mass 
production  (an  American  invention)  and 
the  application  of  unskilled  labor.  The 
mechanical  reapers  with  which  Cyrus 
McCormick  broke  the  prairies  caused  a 
sensation  in  London.  In  the  1850s,  firms 
in  Liverpool  started  ordering  ships  for 
the  Australian  trade  not  from  British 
shipyards  but  from  those  of  New  En- 
gland. Donald  McKay's  yard  in  Boston 
turned  out  clippers— the  space  shuttles 
of  their  time— which  could  sail  more 
than  400  miles  a  day.  McKay's  ship 
Champion  of  the  Seas,  in  whose  honor 

VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


V  ^  )  Ij 


TTcquil 


dWrvcf 

LJ300 


"Acrobata"  by  Mario  Romero,  Mexico  City 

Mexican  art  at  its  best. 

Like  fine  art,  a  fine  tequila  is  a  window  into  a  nation's  soul. 

Cuervo  1800  is  a  distinctive  expression  of  the  culture  and  history  of  Mexico. 

An  inspired  blend  of  the  finest  tequilas,  Cuervo  1800  has  been  refined 

/and  enjoyed  for  over  200  years.  Its  smoothness  and  character  exemplify 

the  passionate  spirit  of  the  Mexican  people. 

For  more  information  on  Cuervo  1800  and  Mexican  art,  call  1-800-TEQUILA. 


T* 


*f\  jr^ 


Liverpool's  children  still  sang  songs  a 
century  later,  made  465  miles  in  the 
southern  ocean  on  December  12,  1854. 
Europe  had  nothing  to  match  it. 

Sixty  years  later,  America  was  the 
world's  largest  economy— accounting 
for  a  little  less  than  a  quarter  of  world 
industrial  output.  The  United  States  led 
the  world  in  the  production  of  natural 
gas,  petroleum  (no  less  than  65  percent 
of  world  output),  copper,  coal,  and  sil- 
ver. It  lagged  behind  only  South  Africa 
in  the  production  of  gold.  And  it  was 
far  and  away  the  world's  largest  pro- 
ducer of  iron  ore— the  ore-rich  hills  of 
the  Mesabi  Range,  deep  in  the  frozen 
northeast  of  Minnesota,  were  the  source, 
beyond  any  other,  of  America's  indus- 
trial might. 

This  older  America,  the  America  on 
the  cusp  of  World  War  1,  is  worth 
recalling.  For  today's  America  much 
resembles  the  country  as  it  was  at  that 
time.  Then,  as  now,  America  was  a 
country  of  immigrants,  and  then,  as 
now,  the  immigrants  came  from  "new" 
countries  of  origin.  In  1910,  the  number 
of  immigrants  from  Germany  was  only 
a  third  what  it  had  been  in  1890.  and 
the  number  from  Ireland  a  little  more 
than  half.  But  in  the  same  20  years,  the 
annual  number  of  immigrants  from 
Italy  more  than  quadrup..  I  aid  from 
the  Russian  empire  it  grew  i  ! 

those   two  decades,   for  example,   the 

48 


Massachusetts  mill  town 
of  Lowell,  which  had  seen 
earlier  immigration  from 
French  Canada  and  Ire- 
land, received  waves  of 
immigrants  first  from 
Poland  and  other  parts  of 
Eastern  Europe,  and  then 
from  much  more  exotic  locations— Syr- 
ia, Armenia,  and  elsewhere  in  the  Ot- 
toman Empire.  In  1900,  43  percent  of 
Lowell's  population  was  foreign-born. 

Through  the  rosy-hued  spectacles  of 
hindsight,  the  immigrants  of  the  first 
years  of  this  century  look  familiar:  a 
bit  like  Grandma,  and  not  at  all  like 
the  Mexicans  and  Southeast  Asians 
who  now  flock  to  American  towns- 
Lowell  among  them.  But  that  was  not 
how  it  seemed  at  the  time.  Nativist 
sentiment  ran  rampant.  Foreign  agita- 
tors were  blamed  for  labor  unrest. 
Leon  Czolgosz,  a  Polish  anarchist,  had 
shot  President  McKinley;  in  the  re- 
cent past,  political  violence  such  as  the 
Haymarket  incident  in  Chicago  had 
been  laid  at  the  feet  of  foreigners. 
During  the  Great  Steel  Strike  of  1919 
in  the  Monongahela  Valley  of  western 
Pennsylvania,  posters  urging  the 
workers  to  return  to  their  jobs  had  to 
be  printed  in  eight  languages— English, 
Polish.  Croatian,  Italian,  Lithuanian, 
Slovak,  Hungarian,  and  Russian.  In 
1910.  more  than  65  percent  of  all  la- 
borers in  mining  and  manufacturing 


celebrating  Americas 

ape  1 1  spacer 

and  natural  wealth, 

choreographed  by 

Agues  de  Milie,  opened  on 

Broadway  in 1943. 

Above,  Marc  Piatt 

and  Katharine  Sergava. 


were  either  foreign -born 
or  the  children  of  immi- 
grants. 

The  face  and  sound  of 
America  were  changed  by 
the  great  immigration  of 
1890  to  1910,  just  as  they 
are  now  being  changed 
again.  For  those  who  are  worried  about 
today's  immigration,  there's  a  conve- 
nient myth  that  the  earlier  arrivals  be- 
came painlessly  assimilated  into  Ameri- 
can life,  as  if  they  had  learned  to  love 
baseball  and  apple  pie  within  weeks  of 
landing  in  New  York.  Yet  the  most  cur- 
sory research  on  the  immigrant  experi- 
ence shows  that  there  was  always  a  ten- 
sion between  assimilation  and  the 
maintenance  of  ethnic  identities. 

In  the  words  of  a  recent  study  of 
the  Monongahela  Valley  steel  towns, 
"Within  walking  distance  of  Jones 
and  Laughlin  Steel  Works,  a  Polish 
woman  .  .  .  could  find  the  right  ingredi- 
ents for  making  kielbasa,  golubki,  or 
duck's  blood  soup;  ...  a  Hungarian 
family  .  .  .  could  attend  either  the  Hun- 
garian Catholic  or  Hungarian  Re- 
formed Church,  both  with  services  in 
their  native  language;  a  Slovak  worker 
in  Homestead  could  practice  gym- 
nastic routines  in  the  Sokol,  or  go  to 
a  wedding  reception  at  the  Russian 
Hall,  with  music  by  a  local  Gypsy 
band."  The  jars  of  curry  paste  and  piles 
of   tortillas    on    today's    supermarket 

VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


shelves— or  the  Buddhist  temples  which 
dot  northern  Virginia-have  distin- 
guished antecedents. 

The  parallels  with  an  earlier  America 
extend  far  beyond  immigration  and 
all  its  tensions.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  century,  as  at  its  end,  the  cities 
were  thought  to  be  strongholds  of 
poverty  and  degradation.  Both  the  pho- 
tographs in  Jacob  Riis's  How  the  Other 
Half  Lives  and  the  novels  of  Upton  Sin- 
clair conveyed  that  horrors  lurked  in 
the  great  metropolises.  Those  horrors 
(shades  of  today's  debate  on  the  under- 
class) were  not  assumed  to  be  merely 
economic  in  nature.  The  plight  of  the 
cities  was  considered  to  have  a  moral 
content,  their  unhappiness  a  natural 
outgrowth  of  dissipation,  ungodliness, 
and  corruption.  When  the  Prohibition 
amendment  was  ratified  in  1919,  the 
evangelist  Billy  Sunday  made  the  link 
between  clean  living  and  the  state  of 
the  cities  explicit.  "The  reign  of  tears  is 
over,"  he  cried.  "The  slums  will  soon 
be  only  a  memory." 

Class  divisions  were  stark— indeed, 
for  all  America's  current  troubles,  they 
were  far  more  vicious  then  than  they 
are  now.  From  Paterson  to  Lawrence, 
from  Gary  to  San  Francisco,  strikes 
erupted  with  an  intensity  almost  impos- 
sible to  imagine  today.  In  July  1892, 
Pinkerton  thugs  hired  by  Henry  Clay 
Frick  landed  at  the  Carnegie  steelworks 
outside  Homestead,  Pennsylvania,  to 
break  a  strike.  In  one  day,  12  people 
were  killed,  all  within  view  of  a  nation- 
al press  corps  housed  in  a  building  that 
still  stands  between  a  library,  built  with 
Carnegie  blood  money,  and  the  gray, 
empty  slab  of  land  where  the  steelworks 
once  belched. 

In  1914,  on  a  day  of  shame  and  ter- 
ror, company  goons  and  National 
Guardsmen  invaded  a  mining  camp  in 
Ludlow,  Colorado.  Thirteen  people,  in- 
cluding women  and  children  (many  of 
them  immigrants,  naturally),  were  killed 
in  one  morning.  And  the  unrest  contin- 
ued after  World  War  I.  Wobblies  were 
rounded  up  and  lynched,  while  in  the 
radical  shipyards  of  the  West  Coast 
there  was  seething  discontent. 

In  the  years  before  World  War  I,  tech- 
nology was  transforming  the  nature  of 
home,  work,  and  play.  Typewriters,  as- 
sembly lines,  and  time-and-motion  stud- 
ies were  the  computers  of  their  day. 
Electric  lighting  and  water  closets  (and 
rolls  of  perforated  toilet  paper,  invented 
just  before  the  turn  of  the  century)  intro- 
duced light  and  cleanliness  into  what 


must  have  been  dark  and  smelly  houses. 
rhe  movies  took  the  country  by  storm; 
by  1910,  says  historian  Thomas  Schler- 
eth,  there  were  "ten  thousand  movie  the- 
aters playing  to  a  nationwide  audience 
of  over  10  million  weekly." 

Today,  a  slew  of  new  inventions- 
voice  mail,  fax  machines,  copiers— have 
once  again  changed  America's  work- 
places and  homes.  For  the  typewriter, 
substitute  the  personal  computer.  The 
Internet  has  become  a  form  of  commu- 
nication as  revolutionary  in  its  poten- 
tial as  the  telephone  once  was.  New 
forms  of  entertainment,  from  videos  to 


now.  President  William  Howard  Taft  re- 
organized the  State  Department  to 
make  it  a  more  efficient  representative 
of  American  interests  abroad.  (Some  80 
years  later,  Warren  Christopher  would 
do  exactly  the  same  thing.) 

Trade  flowed  both  ways.  Merchan- 
dise imports  more  than  doubled  be- 
tween 1900  and  1914,  and  direct  for- 
eign investment  in  the  U.S.— always 
important— continued  its  growth.  In 
1914,  according  to  Mira  Wilkins,  an 
economic  historian,  nearly  20  percent 
of  America's  G.N. P.  was  accounted 
for   by    foreign    investment— the   over- 


Standard  Oil,  International  Harvester, 

New  York  Life-all  became  as  familiar  overseas  as 

McDonald's,  Microsoft,  and  Disney  are  today. 


multimedia,  have  transformed  the  way 
people  enjoy  themselves,  just  as  the 
movies  once  did. 

There  is  one  more  striking  similarity 
between  America  at  the  start  of  the  20th 
century  and  at  its  end.  In  the  pre-1914 
analogue  of  today's  global  economy,  in 
which  commercial  men  with  letters  of 
credit  sauntered  into  banks  anywhere  in 
the  world  and  great  steamships  carved 
the  oceans,  the  United  States  played  a 
full  role.  The  value  of  American  exports 
expanded  almost  threefold  between  1890 
and  1914,  and  the  nature  of  those  ex- 
ports changed. 

British  writers,  having  long  (though 
mistakenly)  thought  of  themselves  as 
denizens  of  the  workshop  of  the  world, 
wailed  about  the  American  goods,  most 
of  tip-top  quality,  which  were  entering 
their  markets— everything  from  electric 
motors  to  clothing.  Arthur  Conan  Doyle 
speckled  his  tales  of  Sherlock  Holmes 
with  muscular,  confident  American  busi- 
nessmen not  only  because  he  wanted 
sales  in  America  (though  he  certainly 
did)  but  also  because  such  men  were  a 
commonplace  in  Britain. 

Just  as  today,  much  of  America's  trade 
was  with  the  developed  economies  of 
Europe.  But,  just  as  today,  American 
firms  were  increasingly  looking  to  Latin 
America,  where  Elihu  Root.  Teddy  Roo- 
sevelt's secretary  of  state,  had  negotiated 
a  series  of  bilateral  tariff  cuts.  Standard 
Oil,  International  Harvester,  New  York 
Life  all  became  as  familiar  overseas  as 
McDonald's,  Microsoft,  and  Disney  are 


whelming  portion  of  it  British— a  level 
which  simply  dwarfs  that  of  the  1990s. 

One  man  can  serve  as  a  symbol  of 
how  comfortable  American  business 
once  was  in  the  wider  world.  After 
graduating  from  Stanford,  Herbert 
Hoover  was  sent  to  a  mining  camp  in 
western  Australia.  At  the  time  of  the 
Boxer  Rebellion  he  was  in  Tientsin.  He 
met  the  Dalai  Lama,  prospected  in  the 
Gobi  Desert  and  Burma— in  fact,  just 
about  everywhere.  For  two  decades,  he 
ran  a  mining  consultancy  headquar- 
tered in  London,  with  offices  in  New 
York,  San  Francisco,  Shanghai,  and  St. 
Petersburg.  On  the  outbreak  of  war,  he 
was  offered  a  position  in  the  British 
Cabinet.  At  war's  end.  after  his  famine- 
relief  efforts  had  saved  countless  thou- 
sands of  Europeans,  Polish  school- 
children marched  through  the  streets  of 
Warsaw  in  his  honor. 

"Mr.  Hoover,"  wrote  John  Maynard 
Keynes  of  the  1919  peace  conference, 
"was  the  only  man  who  emerged  from 
the  ordeal  of  Paris  with  an  enhanced 
reputation.  .  .  .  [He]  imported  into  the 
councils  .  .  .  precisely  that  atmosphere 
of  reality,  knowledge,  magnanimity,  and 
disinterestedness  which,  if  they  had 
been  found  in  other  quarters  also, 
would  have  given  us  the  Good  Peace." 
The  1990s  the  great  decade  of  global 
capitalism?  Oh,  bunk.  It  hasn't  pro- 
duced a  single  man  who  could  hold  a 
candle  to  Hoover. 

And  this  illuminates  a  larger  point. 
Hoover's  combination  of  efficiency  and 
philanthropy  during  and  after  the  war 


VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


49 


___, 


illustrates  the  extent  to  which  Ameri- 
ca was  a  great  power.  True,  it  was  not 
militarily  pre-eminent.  Germany  and 
not  the  United  States— were  the 
nations  which  had  the  ships  and 
weapons  that  could  project  their  mili- 
tary power  to  the  far  ends  of  the  globe. 
(Indeed,  the  small  and  poorly  equipped 
American  army  had  spent  most  of  its 
time  since  the  Civil  War  involved  in  po- 
lice actions  against  Indians.) 

But  by  1914,  America  had  already 
proved  that  it  could  redraw  the  map  of 
the  world.  From  the  time  of  the  Spanish- 
American  War  and  the  annexation  of  the 
Philippines,  through  John  Hay's  Open 
Door  policy  toward 
China,  and  on  to  Ted- 
dy Roosevelt's  broker- 
ing of  a  peace  between 
Russia  and  Japan  in 
1905,  America  had 
shown  itself  to  be  the 
dominant  non -Asiatic 
power  in  the  Pacific,  a 
country  with  which  any 
other  country  pursuing 
sensible  policies  would 
want  to  be  friends.  The 
same  is  true  at  the  cen- 
tury's end. 

In  key  respects,  then, 
the  America  of  1914 
feels  familiar.  Then,  as 
now,  America  was  a 
society  of  immigrants, 
racked  by  cultural  wars 
and  troubled  by  an  ur- 
ban underclass.  Then, 
as  now,  America  was  a 
great  power,  intimately 
involved  in  the  interna- 
tional economy.  Yet 
Americans  today  may  still  think  that 
they  have  been  stuck  with  an  unfair 
bargain.  For  one  thing,  they  may  think 
that  the  sense  of  community  that  had 
seemed  to  be  a  part  of  America  s  en- 
dowment since  the  earliest  days  of  the 
Republic  has  atrophied. 

Of  all  the  insights  of  de  Tocqueville, 
none  was  more  genuinely  radical 
than  the  importance  he  ascribed  to 
voluntary  organizations.  'America 
all  ages,  all  stations  in  life,  and  all 
types  of  disposition,"   he  wrote,   "are 
forever  forming  associations.  There  are 
not  only  commercial  and  industri; 
sociations  in  which  all  take  part,  but 
others  of  a  thousand  different  types 
religious,   moral,   serious,    futile,   very 
general   and   very   limited,   immensely 
large  and  very  minute.  ...    In   every 

50 


case,  at  the  head  of  any  new  undertak- 
ing, where  in  France  you  would  find 
the  government  or  in  England  some 
territorial  magnate,  in  the  United  States 
you  are  sure  to  find  an  association." 

Yet  by  the  1990s  it  was  common  to 
read  that  such  public-spiritedness  was 
on  the  wane.  The  very  word  "communi- 
ty" had  become  loaded.  Often  it  was 
used  simply  to  dignify  a  pressure  group 
engaged  in  a  bit  of  special  pleading— 
"the  arts  community"  wants  this,  "the 
aids  community"  demands  that. 

In  fact,  there  are  reasons  to  think 
that  America  is  entering  a  period  when 
community  spirit  will  be  made  fresh 


rocket  launch  on 

May  24, 1962.  which 

win  M.  Scott  Carpenta 

around  the 

earth  three  times. 


once  more.  Nothing  so 
brings  a  community  to- 
gether as  the  state  of 
its  schools.  The  uptick 
of  school  enrollments 
in  the  1980s  was  ac- 
companied—mirabile  dictu— by  a  rise  in 
the  membership  of  P.TA.'s.  Women 
may  no  longer  have  as  much  time  to 
devote  to  community  affairs,  but  the 
evidence  of  Big  Brothers,  mentoring. 
and,  not  least,  fathers'  involvement 
in  schools  suggests  that  men  are  par- 
filling  the  gap.  And  who  has 
a  tracked  the  social  significance  of 
'  the  most  interesting  of  all  con- 
temporary voluntary  groups:  parent- 
(  rganized  soccer  leagues?  Take  a  look 
nerica's  suburbs  on  any  Satur- 
di  and  you'll  see  thousands  of  kids, 
fro  to    teenagers,    playing    the 


global   game.    Fifteen   years   ago,   the 
leagues  didn't  exist. 

In  economic  life,  too,  there  are  signs 
that  a  time  of  turmoil  is  behind  us.  The 
wrenching  transition  of  the  American 
economy  in  the  last  30  years  came  at  a 
price,  a  price  in  upheaval,  lost  dreams, 
and  dying  towns,  but  it  also  brought 
with  it  great  benefits.  The  foreign  com- 
petition to  which  America  was  exposed 
as  the  world  came  to  its  shores  was  the 
best  kind  of  stimulus  for  new  invest- 
ment and  better  design. 

The  messy,  mixed-up  kids  of  TV, 
early  sex,  and  broken  homes  turned  out 
to  have  a  natural  feel  for  electronics. 
The  universities  which 
were  supposed  to  be 
mired  in  nothing  but 
abstruse  debates  about 
political  correctness 
were  actually  turning 
out  tens  of  thousands 
of  scientists  and  tech- 
nologists, a  dispropor- 
tionate number  of 
them  children  of  those 
same  immigrants  whom 
the  nativists  would 
have  kept  away  from 
America's  shores. 

IBM  was  briefly 
humbled  not  by  the 
Japanese— much  less 
by  the  Germans,  who 
hardly  have  a  com- 
puter business  worth 
the  name— but  by  Mi- 
crosoft, Apple,  and 
Compaq,  and  when 
Apple  and  Compaq 
got  a  bit  too  comfort- 
able, they  themselves 
were  challenged  by  nippy  up- 
starts such  as  Dell  and  Gate- 
way 2000.  Sensible  parents  de- 
spaired when  the  cable  industry 
managed  to  push  50  TV  chan- 
nels (with  the  threat  of  hun- 
dreds more  to  come)  into  their  living 
rooms,  then  realized  the  race  to  put 
something  on  all  those  channels  had 
bred  an  entertainment  industry  that 
dominated  the  world. 

Even  American  family  life  shows 
signs  of  finding  a  new  level  of  stability 
and  predictability.  The  shock  of  change 
from  one  family  structure  to  another  is 
behind  us.  In  the  1950s,  men  were  ex- 
pected to  work,  and  married  women, 
by  and  large,  were  not.  Then  came  a 
violent  period  in  which  that  assump- 
tion was  stood  on  its  head.  Now  most 
families  need  two  wage  earners.  In  the 

VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


'■  \ 


"■■(M% 


H 


■ 


13k 


'£■ 


'A! 


1960s,  parents  did  not  know  if  their 
teenage  children  would  be  sexually  ac- 
tive or  not,  and  this  created  a  quite  nov- 
el cultural  tension.  That  tension  has 
been  removed;  teenagers  have  sex,  and 
parents  know  it.  We  may  find  that  a  so- 
ciety can  cope  with  a  certain  level  of 
both  divorce  and  illegitimacy,  as  long  as 
neither  is  growing  fast. 

If  all  this  optimism  about  our  cur- 
rent state  is  well  founded,  what  will  it 
do  to  the  real  and  troubling  divisions  in 
modern  America,  those  between  social 
classes?  The  rediscovery  of  class  marks 
a  genuine  decline  in  the  state  of  Ameri- 
ca since  the  Golden  Age.  It's  made  no 
better  by  saying  (though  this  is  true) 
that  pre-1914  America,  to  which  we 
might  be  looking  for  lessons,  was  class- 
bound,  too. 

But  if  the  predictions  of  a  new  stabil- 
ity in  family  life  are  accurate,  it  will,  in 
time,  affect  class  divisions.  It  is  reason- 
able to  suppose,  in  other  words  that  the 
contribution  family  breakdown  made  to 
the  creation  of  the  underclass  will,  at 
the  very  least,  not  get  any  worse.  Of 
course,  it  is  not  the  modern  American 
way  to  wait  for  deep  social  transforma- 
tions to  produce  a  benign  change  in  i 
havior.  Americans  want  action. 

In  the  Golden  Age,  they  lookeu  I 
such  action  to  another  unifying  institu- 
tion, the  federal  government.  Insofar  as 
they  still  do,  they  look  in  vain.  It  seems 


highly  unlikely  that  Washing- 
ton is  going  to  be  as  great  a 
force  in  the  next  chapter  of 
the  Republic's  history  as  it 
was  in  the  last.  The  crises 
that  led  to  the  acceptance  of 
an  enhanced  role  for  the  federal  govern- 
ment—the Depression,  world  war,  codi- 
fied racism- have  disappeared.  Ameri- 
cans for  20  years  have  signaled  pretty 
firmly  that  they  are  not  prepared  to 
grant  Washington  additional  powers  to 
advance  racial  equality.  Moreover,  the 
very  growth  of  federal  government  dur- 
ing those  periods  of  crisis  has  spawned 
almost  as  much  ingratitude  and  suspi- 
cion as  thankfulness. 

Yet  though  America  may  no  longer 
be  in  a  state  of  crisis,  it  still  needs 
glue.  The  distance  between  the  un- 
derclass in  Detroit  and  the  plutocrats 
of  Grosse  Pointe  is  far  greater  than 
any  European  country  would  tolerate, 
and  utterly  beyond  the  frame  of  refer- 
ence  of  Japan.   And   Americans   still 
show  an  attachment  to  local  prefer- 
ences that  can  make  a  mockery  of  na- 
ional  cohesion. 
Of  the   12  states  without  a  death 
ilty,  almost  all  are  in  the  North- 
i    Midwest.  Levels  of  homicide 
the  northern   tier  are  typically  a 
third  they  are  in  the  South.  A 

gener;  worth  of  educational  re- 


orm  has  not  touched  an 
immutable  fact  of  Ameri- 
can life:  the  states  along 
the  Canadian  border  grad- 
uate oodles  more  children 
from  high  school  than  the 
states  in  the  South.  A  generation  of 
foreign  investment  in  the  backcountry 
of  the  Carol  inas  has  not  altered  the 
swagger,  braggadocio,  or  old-fashioned 
patriotism  of  the  mountain  towns.  Im- 
migration from  Southeast  Asia  has  not 
changed  Texas. 

Of  course,  those  differences  are  of- 
ten a  source  of  pride:  they  make  Amer- 
ica what  it  is.  Yet  the  history  books  tell 
us  that  they  can  be  stretched  too  far,  in 
ways  that  once  led  to  a  great  civil  war, 
and  that  in  more  modern  times  stunted 
the  lives  of  black  Americans.  Some 
Americans,  at  least,  fear  that  they  are 
being  stretched  too  far  again.  After  the 
House  of  Representatives  passed  a  wel- 
fare bill  in  1995  which  converted  feder- 
al programs  to  block  grants  to  the 
states,  John  Lewis,  a  Democratic  con- 
gressman who  as  a  young  civil-rights 
worker  had  been  beaten  nearly  to 
death,  said  that  "those  who  come  from 
the  South  or  from  urban  centers  have 
real  reservations  about  giving  the  mon- 
ey to  states.  .  .  .  They  can  talk  about 
Wisconsin,  that's  one  thing.  But  in  Al- 
abama, where  I  grew  up,  or  in  Geor- 
gia, we  lived  through  states'  rights  and 


52 


VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


we're  concerned  about  it.  .  .  .  The  glue 
that  holds  our  country  together— I  think 
we're  starting  to  pull  apart." 

The  natural  optimist  takes  John  Lewis's 
words  as  a  warning;  the  pessimist 
takes  them  as  a  prophecy.  Think  how 
a  pessimist  would  consider  a  drive,  in 
1996,  that  started  at  Los  Angeles  airport. 
You  hear  a  babel  of  languages— Spanish, 
Korean,  Chinese— as  you  shove  your  way 
to  the  rental-car  counter.  You  see  Mexi- 
cans sweeping  the  floors,  clipping  the 
lawns.  It's  a  near  certainty  that  some  of 
them  are  illegal  immigrants,  and  you 
grumble  inwardly  that  your  tax  dollars 
are  paying  for  their  health  care  and  their 
children's  education. 

Then  you  set  off  north  on  1-405  in 
the  direction  of  Santa  Monica,  through 
a  jumbled  landscape  whose  features  are 
softened  by  smog.  Your  eyes  sting.  After 
a  few  miles  you  turn  right  toward  down- 
town Los  Angeles  on  1-10.  To  the  north, 
you  can  make  out  the  hills  above  Mali- 
bu  from  which  the  Santa  Ana  winds 
whip  fires  to  the  ocean.  You  think  about 
the  sheer  arrogance  of  man,  choosing  to 
build  a  heaving  metropolis  in  a  place 
that  God  treats  as  a  playground. 

You  drive  on.  To  your  left,  you  see 
the  line  of  the  Hollywood  Hills,  the 
houses  perched  on  stilts,  the  unrepen- 
tant habitat  of  the  showbiz  moguls  who 
shove  mindless  dreck  into  your  living 
room.  To  your  right,  you  can  sense  the 
devastation  of  South-Central  Los  Ange- 
les, still  scarred  after  the  worst  riots  of 
the  century.  You  reach  the  city  center, 
with  its  towers  owned  by  predatory  Jap- 
anese banks.  Then  it's  on  through  mile 
after  mile  of  subdivision  dropped  onto 
pristine  desert,  until,  after  a  couple  of 
hours,  you  come  to  Palm  Springs,  a  silly 
pleasure  palace,  expensive,  thoughtless. 

Now  drive  along  exactly  the  same 
route  as  an  optimist.  Start  by  remember- 
ing that  those  Mexicans,  Koreans,  and 
Chinese  in  the  airport  are  there  for  a 
reason:  measured  by  its  attraction  for 
those  who  can  choose  where  they  live, 
Los  Angeles  is  the  world's  and  the  cen- 
tury's most  successful  city.  Ask  one  of 
those  Mexican  women  what  she  intends 
to  do  when  her  hard  shift  is  finished  and 
she  may  say  that,  in  the  early  hours  of 
the  morning,  she's  off  to  learn  English 
at  a  language  school.  Her  children,  she 
will  tell  you  with  pride,  are  both  at 
Long  Beach  State;  they  come  home  for 
a  family  supper  each  night. 

Drive  north  on  1-405,  approaching 
the  measured  curves  of  the  junction  with 
1-10,  and  remember  that  in  1971  Reyner 


Banham,  architect  and  critic,  wrote  that 
"the  intersection  is  a  work  of  art,  both  as 
a  pattern  on  the  map,  as  a  monument 
against  the  sky,  and  as  a  kinetic  experi- 
ence as  one  sweeps  through  it."  This  is 
America's  Louvre,  its  Colosseum. 

Look  left,  to  the  houses  in  the  hills  of 
the  men  and  women  who  created  an  en- 
tertainment industry  that  has  conquered 
the  world.  From  Penang  to  Paris,  popu- 
lar culture  is  fueled  by  a  combination  of 
breathtaking  risk,  technological  genius, 
and  a  sense  of  what  mankind  finds 
amusing;  the  brew  was  patented  some- 
where north  of  Sunset.  Look  right,  to 
one  of  the  single  greatest  concentrations 
of  manufacturing  industry  in  the  West- 
ern Hemisphere;  spot  the  new,  aggres- 
sive firms  started  by  Indian  software  en- 
gineers, by  Korean  biologists. 

Sweep  past  the  downtown  towers  for 
which  the  foolish  Japanese  paid  much 
more  than  their  real  value.  Drive  past 
the  east  side,  where  what  is  probably  the 
most  prosperous  Spanish-surnamed  pop- 
ulation on  the  globe  has  made  its  home; 
drive  past  Monterey  Park,  majority  Chi- 
nese and  bursting  with  talent.  Drive  past 
Cal  Tech,  where  Nobel  laureates  seem 
to  grow  as  easily  as  palms,  and  remem- 
ber that  many  countries  would  kill  for  a 


want  to  become  Americans,  while  most 
of  its  black  inhabitants  have  lives  more 
like  those  of  their  white  counterparts 
than  all  but  the  most  optimistic  would 
have  imagined  in  1945. 

Drive  from  LAX  to  Palm  Springs  and 
you  will  see  that  natives  and  immigrants, 
blacks  and  whites  display  the  same  ad- 
diction to  consumer  goods  and  the  same 
veneration  of  the  TV,  that  they  fire  up 
the  grill  on  the  same  weekend  in  May, 
junk  their  suits  for  sweatshirts  at  the 
same  rate,  value  being  a  good  neighbor 
in  the  same  way,  take  the  same  Pledge  of 
Allegiance,  weep  at  the  same  Vietnam 
Veterans  Memorial,  admire  the  same  Mi- 
chael Jordan.  That  may  sound  a  com- 
monplace list;  it  is  not  a  trivial  one. 

United  in  these  ways,  large  and  small, 
America  is  the  most  powerful  country  in 
the  world,  a  cultural,  technological,  and 
military  colossus.  American  officials  are 
as  likely  to  be  found  mediating  between 
Greece  and  Turkey  as  they  are  to  be  or- 
ganizing a  change  of  government  in 
Haiti.  American  fashion,  design,  sports, 
software,  and  movies  dominate  the 
earth.  A  period  of  traumatic  change  in 
American  family  life  is  ending.  A  vi- 
brant corporate  sector  and  an  expand- 
ing  world   economy   can   provide   the 


The  mixed-up  kids  of  TV,  early  sex,  and  broken  homes 
turned  out  to  have  a  natural  feel  for  electronics. 


university  half  as  good.  Drive  by  the 
subdivisions  in  San  Bernardino  and 
Riverside  Counties,  where  working-class 
families  live  in  a  level  of  comfort  still 
rare  in  most  other  nations.  Drive  by  the 
university  campus  where  they  send  their 
children,  so  well  financed  by  generous 
taxpayers  that  their  tuition  is  almost 
free.  Arrive  in  Palm  Springs,  where  the 
San  Jacinto  Mountains  rise  to  pierce  a 
cobalt  sky,  and  watch  thousands  of  ordi- 
nary people  enjoy  themselves  in  the  kind 
of  luxury  that  their  grandparents  would 
have  thought  the  stuff  of  dreams. 

hy  is  a  glass  that  is  half  full  (at 
least)  so  often  described  as  half 
empty  (at  best)?  The  forces  of  co- 
hesion that  shaped  the  Golden  Age  are 
not  what  they  were,  and  some  of  them, 
like  the  ability  of  the  federal  govern- 
ment to  ameliorate  social  conditions, 
will  be  stunted  for  a  long  time,  in  a  way 
that  may  prove  dangerous.  But  America 
is  not  falling  apart.  Its  new  immigrants 


growth  and  shared  prosperity  which 
once  brought  the  country  together.  This 
is  not  a  bad  prognosis  for  any  nation. 

At  least,  it  wouldn't  be  if  America 
could  remember  more  of  its  history.  An 
older  America  was  once  divided  by  race, 
class,  gender,  and  region.  It  overcame 
those  divisions  and  made  itself  into  a  na- 
tion that  saved  the  world.  "America," 
Woodrow  Wilson  wrote  in  1889,  "is  now 
sauntering  through  her  resources  and 
through  the  mazes  of  her  politics  with 
easy  nonchalance;  but  presently  there 
will  come  a  time  when  she  will  be  sur- 
prised to  find  herself  grown  old— a  coun- 
try crowded,  strained,  perplexed— when 
she  will  be  obliged  ...  to  pull  herself  to- 
gether, adopt  a  new  regimen  of  life,  hus- 
band her  resources,  concentrate  her 
strength,  steady  her  methods,  sober  her 
views,  restrict  her  vagaries,  trust  her  best, 
not  her  average  members."  All  of  that, 
and  more,  Americans  once  did.  Only 
those  who  are  not  Americans  should 
think  that  they  cannot  do  it  again.  D 


VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


53 


THE  BATTLE  HYMN 
OEM NEW HEMIC 

Americas  most  august  political  journal 

has  a  new  editor,  Michael  Kelly.  But  as  the  tumultuous 

departure  of  his  predecessor,  Andrew  Sullivan, 

demonstrates,  Kelly  inherits  a  magazine  damaged 

by  ego,  malice,  and  infighting 

BY  MARJORIE  WILLIAMS 
T 


Andrew  Sullivan,  photographed 

by  Pascal  Chevallier,  in 

his  Washington  apartment  in 

November  1994,  at  the  height  of 

his  controversial  tenure; 

Michael  Kelly,  inset,  heading 

into  the  Leon's  den. 


[ 

^^^  verything  might  have  gone 
fine  had  Andrew  Sullivan  just 
said  his  good-byes,  enjoyed  his 
farewell  dinner,  and  taken  a 
vacation. 

Instead  he  made  the  deci- 
■■  sion,  in  stepping  down  after 
five  years  as  editor  of  Tlie  New  Rcj 
to  tell  the  magazine's  staff  what 
knew  but  many  suspected:  that  for  near 
ly  three  years  he  had  been  H. IV. -posi- 
tive. The  April  12  announcement,  which 
in  any  other  office  might  have  been  re- 
garded as  a  sad  piece  of  personal  busi- 
ness, was  seen  by  some  within  the  maga- 
zine as  a  bid  for  public  sympathy,  and  it 
took  by  surprise  those— including  own- 

54 


er  Martin  Peretz— who 
had    bent    over    back- 
ward to  protect  this  se- 
cret.    Sullivan's    ene- 
mies, after  his  difficult 
term    at    the    top    of 
the  masthead,  couldn't 
bear  to  think  of  him 
controlling  the  cov- 
erage of  his  depar- 
ture, even  for  a  day. 
"I  wish  Andrew  a 

and  fruitful  life,  but  he's  changing 

ubject,"  said  literary  editor  Leon 

v  in  a  pointed  comment  to  Tire 

n  Post.  '"The  problems  around 

this  ol   i        en    not  n    Jical  problems. 

He  was  re.  pon  lible  for  an  extraordinary 


amount  of  profes- 
sional and  personal 
unhappiness.  In  his 
little    farewell   ad- 
dress, he  said  he  feels 
unburdened.  Well, 
he's  not  alone." 

Suddenly,  Sullivan's 
departure— which  had 
been  billed,  at  least  for 
public  consumption,  as 
an  amicable  split— had 
all  the  hallmarks  of  a  bit- 
ter divorce,  with  the  con- 
testants competing  to  establish  in  the 
minds  of  their  horrified  friends  just  which 
party  was  at  fault.  "You  don't  get  a  dead- 
ly disease  to  improve  your  public  rela- 
tions," Sullivan  told  me,  with  some  heat. 

VANITY  FAIR  /AUGUST  1996 


z 


'Mum  always  said,  'Mel,  when  going  'couture,' 

ceessorize  with  discretion.'  1  always  recommend 

a  simple  Tanqueray  Sterling  Vodka  martini." 


.sliiiiHliiii 


\ei  he  was  a!  least  guilty  of  launching  his 
own  naked  campaign  of  damage  control, 
writi  ig  in  The  Sunday  Times  of  London 
crving  account  of  his  tenure  and 
departure  titled  "Closed  Minds  in  the 
Land  of  the  Free,"  which  essentially 
painted  his  former  staff  as  intolerant  and 
benighted  Yanks,  the  magazine  as  a  mire 
of  political  correctness. 

Which,  in  turn,  enraged  Peretz.  "The 
Sunday  Times  piece  sent  Marty  over  the 
moon.  .  .  .  Marty  went  nuts,"  says  a  col- 
league. Peretz  made  a  point  of  saying 
that  he  was  in  no  hurry  to  hire  a  replace- 
ment for  Sullivan.  "I  have  a  strong  staff 
in  place,"  he  told  Time  magazine's  Mar- 
garet Carlson  in  May.  "They  don't  need  di- 
rection from  above,  which  is  good,  since 
they  haven't  had  any  for  quite  a  while." 

Even  as  Peretz  cast  about  for  a  suc- 
cessor, working  down  a  list  that  includ- 
ed presidential  adviser  George  Steph- 
anopoulos  and  a  fistful  of  prominent 
male  writers  and  editors,  the  wrangling 
over  Sullivan's  departure  advertised  some 
of  the  job's  least  attractive  features.  "It 
doesn't  seem  worth  the  trouble,  to  take 
a  huge  pay  cut  just  to  get  your  butt 
kicked,"  one  candidate  observed.  Before 
the  flap  was  over— and  New  Yorker  writer 
Michael  Kelly  named  as  Sullivan's  re- 
placement—Peretz  would  privately  tell 
almost  anyone  who  asked  that  he  had 
indeed  fired  Sullivan,  while  insisting 
publicly  (in  an  interview  with  Vanity 
Fair,  among  others)  that  he  hadn't.  Sul- 
livan, in  turn,  would  be  lining  up 
friends,  like  alibi  witnesses,  to  attest  that 
he  had  told  them  prior  to  his  meeting 
with  Peretz  that  he  was  going  to  quit. 

Now,  Sullivan  has  always  had  his  de- 
tractors at  the  magazine.  Appointed  in 
1991  at  the  age  of  28,  he  reaped  wide- 
spread publicity  as  the  first  British.  Tory, 
Catholic,  openly  gay  editor  Tlie  New  Re- 
public had  ever  had.  He  was  certainly  the 
first  editor  of  the  venerable  magazine 
ever  to  brag  that  he  watched  Melrose 
Place  and  Studs,  or  to  gaze  doe-eyed 
from  an  advertisement  for  the  Gap. 
"People  had  the  feeling."  growled  one 
typical  detractor,  "that  he  was  treating 
The  New  Republic  as  a  part-time  job,  and 
his  full-time  job  was  to  be  a  celebi 

And  Tlie  New  Republic  has  always 
been  a  contentious  place,  at  least  since 
its  purchase  in  1974  by  Peretz.  Its  den- 
izens have  long  had  a  genius  for  con- 
flict, even  with  confreres  whose 
ical  positions  were  infinitesimal  lv  differ- 
ent from  their  own.  The  mid-80s.  one 
staffer  says  jokingly,  created  antagoi. 
not  just  over  whether  the  U.S.  should 
support  the  Nicaraguan  contras  but  also 

56 


over  which  pro-contra  writer  had  the 
better  rationale  for  doing  so.  and  which 
one  supported  the  better  set  of  contras. 

But  the  venom  that  surrounded  Sulli- 
van's departure  had  a  heightened  quality. 
"This  has  all  made  The  New  Republic 
look  like  a  place  that's  a  big  clash  of 
egos.  That  was  always  there,  but  it  used 
to  be  embedded  in  the  clash  of  ideas,  as 
well,"  says  Jacob  Weisberg,  who  worked 
under  both  Sullivan  and  his  predecessors. 
"It  was  considered  bad  form  to  dislike 
someone  just  because  you  were  his  rival." 

"To  me,  it  is  emblematic  of  how 
fucked  up  that  office  is,"  says  Evan 
Smith,  deputy  editor  at  Texas  Monthly. 
who  served  a  traumatic  seven-month 
term  as  deputy  editor  of  The  New  Re- 
public under  Sullivan.  "It  would  be  fun- 
ny, if  it  didn't  say  something  so  dire 
about  the  state  of  political  journalism. 
This  is,  after  all,  The  New  Republic.  .  .  . 
And  here  you've  got  these  guys  with 
their  flies  open,  pissing  on  each  other." 

This  is  the  situation  that  lies  in  wait, 
like  a  good-news/bad-news  joke,  for  Mi- 
chael Kelly,  who  will  finish  out  the  elec- 
tion season  writing  his  "Letter  from 
Washington"  in  The  New  Yorker  before 
taking  the  helm  of  T.N.R.  in  November. 
The  good  news  is  that  he  will  be  assum- 
ing control  of  a  magazine  that  has  had  a 
more  important  long-running  role  than 
any  other  in  political  journalism.  The 
bad  news  is  that,  as  the  Sullivan  fracas 
made  painfully  clear,  The  New  Republic's 
strengths  have  lately  mutated  into  weak- 
nesses. What  has  been,  at  its  best,  the  fa- 
milial atmosphere  of  a  small  shop  run 
by  a  volatile  Jewish  Fezziwig  is  now  the 
compulsive  ingrown  angst  of  the  dys- 
functional family;  what  used  to  be  an  in- 
stitutional attitude  of  hardheaded  skepti- 
cism has  curdled  into  a  reflexive  love  of 
controversy  for  controversy's  sake;  and 
what  was  once  the  clash  of  personalities 
passionately  engaged  in  their  ideas  now 
seems  a  tawdry  brand  of  office  politics 
no  different  than  might  be  found  at  a 
midsize  insurance  firm. 


'T 


he  difference  between  The  New  Re- 
public 10  years  ago  and  now  is  that  10 
years  ago  you  went  into  your  office  and 
fought  over  who  could  read  it  first,"  says 
a  staffer  at  another  magazine,  who  talked 
to  Peretz  about  becoming  T.N.R.  s  next 
chief.  "It's  still  coming  into  the  office,  but 
people  aren't  lighting  over  it  anymore." 

In  other  words,  it's  still  a  fairly  stable 
magazine,  with  circulation  of  around 
1,000,   the  moderate  financial  losses 
c  jmmo  :  to  political  and  literary  jour- 
nal    and  a  list  of  well-to-do,  influential 


subscribers.  But  it  has  unquestionably 
lost  the  edge  that  made  it  mandatory 
reading  in  the  1980s. 

Founded  in  1914  by  Herbert  Croly, 
the  grandfather  of  contemporary  liberal- 
ism, economist  Walter  Weyl,  and  the 
young  Walter  Lippmann,  Tlie  New  Re- 
public has  always  had  its  ups  and 
downs— its  downs  prominently  including 
its  embrace  of  Stalinism  in  the  30s  and 
its  early  counsel  of  passivity  in  response 
to  the  rise  of  Fascism  in  Europe.  But  it 
has  a  remarkably  lustrous  history,  with 
contributors,  editors,  and  friends  who 
form  an  almost  unbroken  chain  of  20th- 
century  American  intellectual  life;  it  can 
fairly  claim  to  have  been,  over  the  past 
eight  decades,  the  country's  leading  ves- 
sel of  progressive  thought. 

When  Peretz  bought  the  magazine, 
after  marrying  into  the  Singer  sewing- 
machine  fortune.  The  New  Republic  was 
in  one  of  its  sleepier  chapters.  To  revive 
it.  he  cultivated  a  farm  team  of  young 
staffers- mostly  Harvard-educated,  most- 
ly Jewish,  and,  above  all,  mostly  male. 
(The  late  contributor  Henry  Fairlie  once 
told  an  interviewer,  "It's  like  an  ancient 
Greek  gymnasium  there.")  Under  the  al- 
ternating editorships  of  Michael  Kinsley 
and  Hendrik  Hertzberg,  it  became  the 
magazine  from  which  young  writers  were 
happy  to  accept  a  pittance,  and  on  which 
policymakers  relied  to  referee  their  de- 
bates. When  it  turned  70,  in  1984,  Peretz 
memorialized  its  high-water  mark  with  a 
party  at  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 
that  featured  Henry  Kissinger  and 
Katharine  Graham,  Pat  Buchanan  and 
Betty  Friedan.  Yo-Yo  Ma  sawed  out 
"Happy  Birthday"  on  his  cello. 

It  had  its  critics,  of  course,  who  lam- 
basted Peretz's  heavy  stamp  on  the  con- 
tents (especially  his  uncritical  support  of 
Israel)  and  the  magazine's  very  evident 
move  to  the  right.  A  Harvard  instructor 
and  onetime  60s  activist  who  felt  mugged 
by  the  New  Left,  Peretz  pushed  the  mag- 
azine toward  a  conservative  foreign  poli- 
cy and  an  insistent  argument  against  af- 
firmative action.  Many  liberals,  some  of 
them  on  the  staff,  felt  that  under  Peretz 
T.N.R.  was  giving  comfort  to  the  enemy; 
Kinsley  once  joked  that  the  magazine 
should  change  its  name  to  Even  the  Lib- 
eral New  Republic  (as  in  "Even  the  liber- 
al New  Republic  is  in  favor  of  funding  the 
contras").  But  the  internal  contradic- 
tions—including the  legendary  battles  be- 
tween Peretz  and  the  editors  he  hired- 
somehow  strengthened  the  magazine.  In 
its  pages,  the  staff  conducted  their  battles 
with  high  style  and  passion. 

It  is  a  passion  notably  missing  from  the 

VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


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magazine  now.  "Over  the  last  five  years 
or  so,  The  New  Republic 
has  strayed  from  its 
tradition  as  the  lead- 
ing political  magazine 
in  the  country,"  says 
Michael  J.  Sandel,  pro- 
fessor of  government  at 
Harvard  and  erstwhile 
mentor  to  Sullivan.  "I 
think  what  happened  in 
recent  years  was  a  sub- 
tle shift  from  skepticism 
into  cynicism.  Into  a  flip, 
trendy,  snide  tone." 

Under  Sullivan,  the  mag- 
azine subordinated  its  tradi 
tional  meat-and-potatoes  po- 
litical coverage  to  a  focus  on 
pop  culture  and  the  kinds  of 
politics  that  have  modifiers: 
sexual  politics,  gender  politics, 
racial  politics.  This  shift  includ- 
ed a  considerable  emphasis  on 
gay  issues,  which  has  been  con-     ~^^ 
troversial  but  is  an  area  where 
Sullivan's  enthusiasm  usually  resulted  in 
high  standards  of  reporting,  writing,  and 
argument.  As  often,  though,  Sullivan's 
interests  produced  major  stories  such 
as  Generation  X  novelist  Douglas 
Coupland's  musings  on  Brentwood  ("In 
Brentwood,  infrastructure  is  present  pre- 
cisely  through    its   lack   of  presence") 
and  Camille  Paglia  on  Barbra  Streisand. 

Among  the  most  widely  derided  mis- 
steps was  Paglia's  March  cover  story, 
a  "psychological  portrait"  of  First 
Lady  Hillary  Clinton  titled  "Ice  Queen, 
Drag  Queen."  Written  with  Paglia's  usu- 
al pop  grandiosity,  it  verged  on  parody, 
plumbing  the  sexuality  of  "Hillary  the 
man-woman  and  bitch-goddess."  "Hillary 
was  first  attracted  to  Bill  when  she  heard 
him  boasting  about  the  size  of  Arkansas' 
watermelons  in  the  Yale  Law  School 
lounge,"  Paglia  wrote.  "Bill's  exotic,  ru- 
ral, sensually  sweet  and  ripe  watermelons 
were  a  symbol  of  freedom,  fruitfulness 
and  abundance.  He  was  Female  Man  ..." 
"The  Paglia  thing  was  really  a  kind 
of  watershed,"  says  one  staffer.  "It  was 
the  first  time  I  ever  thought,  Jesus,  I 
work  for  this  thing." 

Even  in  its  more  serious  pieces,  the 
magazine  often  seemed  wedded  more  to 
the  controversy  it  created  than  to  the 
actual  ideas  it  was  propounding.  It 
damned  the  Clinton  health-care  plan  in 
an  article  by  Elizabeth  McCaughey 
ominously  titled  "No  Exit"— an  article 
that  had  an  enormous  impact  and  won 
its  author  both  a  National  Magazine 

VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


Above,  literary  editor  Leon 
Wieseltier,  his  ex-wife,  Mahnaz  Ispahani, 
and  Andrew  Sullivan  at  T.N.R.'s 
80th-anniversary  party  at 
Washington's  Decatur  House; 
left,  Sullivan  with  predecessors 
Michael  Kinsley  (standing) 
and  Hendrik  Hertzberg;  bottom, 
Sullivan's  1993  Gap  ad. 


,r*-   ITS 

Yov  "*ov„>et  A 

B'UHCe  THAT  „ 

C0UN"«  ro  THE 


QVOCL>ssicoAP 

f0"  IHOIVID 


'You  don't  get  a  deadly 


disease  to  improve  your  public 


relations,"  Sullivan  says. 


Award  and  the  lieu- 
tenant-governorship 
of  New  York,  but  that 
seriously  mis- 
represented 
the  Clinton 
plan  in  its  partic- 
ulars. T.N.R.  reg- 
ulars were  horri- 
fied that,  at  the  first  and  possibly  the 
last  moment  when  some  sort  of  national 
health  care  seemed  an  achievable  goal, 
this  bastion  of  traditional  liberalism 
weighed  in  with  a  piece  they  saw  as 
sloppy  and  dishonest. 

Many  were  also  appalled  when  Sul- 
livan—with Peretz's  encouragement- 
chose  to  run  an  excerpt  from  The  Bell 
Curve,  by  Charles  Murray  and  Richard 
Herrnstein,  which  argued  that  there  are 
genetic  reasons  for  race  differentials  on 
I.Q.  tests.  Sullivan  ended  up  publishing, 
under  pressure  from  his  own  staffers,  18 
dissenting  opinions. 

A  slew  of  the  magazine's  most 
prominent  writers  and  contributors- 
Jacob  Weisberg,  Mickey  Kaus,  Fred 
Barnes.  Robert  Wright— have  left  the 
premises  or  are  now  doing  their  bi  . 
work  for  others.  Former  editor  Kins- 
ley moved  to  another  medium  entirely. 


joining   Microsoft  to  start 
the  on-line  magazine  Slate. 
(Full  disclosure:  Inevitably,  given 
the  tiny  pond  of  Washington  journal- 
ism, several  current  and  former  New 
Republic  staffers  are   friends  or  ac- 
quaintances of  mine,  including  Kins- 
ley. My  husband  worked  at  the  maga- 
zine some  15  years  ago,  first  as  an 
intern  and  then  as  a  staff  writer.) 

And  while  Sullivan  made  some  very 
good  hires— among  them  John  Judis, 
Matthew  Cooper,  Michael  Lewis,  and 
Jeffrey  Rosen— his 
tenure  was  also  re- 
markable for  the 
development 
and  coddling  of 
staff  writer  Ruth 
Shalit,  who  was  im- 
plicated in  five  in- 
stances of  plagiarism 
(some  of  them  in  other  magazines)  and  a 
self-inflicted  libel  suit.  To  old  fans,  it 
was  puzzling  and  disturbing  that  those 
running  the  magazine  seemed  to  prize 
the  25-year-old  Shalit's  nascent  stardom 
above  T.N.R.  s  reputation.  "In  a  way, 
[Andrew]  didn't  understand  the  differ- 
ence between  good  publicity  and  bad 
publicity"  says  a  T.N.R.  insider.  "I  think 
he  just  thrived  on  the  attention." 

One  symptom  of  the  magazine's  de- 
clining prestige  was  that  when  Kinsley 
stepped  down  as  author  of  the  decades- 
old  "TRB  from  Washington"  column, 
Sullivan  never  settled  on  a  permanent 
successor.  He  was  even  turned  down 
by  several  candidates,  including  New  Re- 
'■<  minus  Weisberg,  who  had  re- 
centl)  decamped  to  New  York  magazine. 
"If  someone  had  told  me  a  year  ago 
that  they'd  offer  me  TRB'  and  I'd  turn 
it  down,"  he  reportedly  told  a  friend, 

57 


■— — — «■ ■"■■■ " 


"I  would  have  said  they  were  crazy." 
New  Republic  staffers  were  accus- 
tomed to  hearing  the  magazine  criticized 
on  political  grounds.  But  this  was  a  differ- 
ent order  of  pain,  summed  up  when  con- 
servative writer  Andrew  Ferguson  pub- 
lished an  essay  in  Tlie  Washingtonian  ask- 
ing, "When  did  The  New  Republic  get  so 
...  so  silly?"  Of  the  magazine's  efforts  to- 
ward hipness,  Ferguson  wrote,  "There  was 
pathos  in  it— like  watching  a  middle-aged 
accountant  try  on  a  pair  of  nipple  rings." 
In  fact,  Sullivan  may  have  made  more 
errors  of  omission  than  of  commission. 
"It's  O.K.  to  run  an  occasionally  contro- 
versial piece  that  everyone  hates— you 
can  take  those  risks,"  argues  one  former 
colleague.  "As  long  as  you  have  the  solid 
New  Republic  content  in  there.  Andrew 
isn't  interested  in  politics.  He's  interested 
in  sexual  politics,  and  in  meta-politics.  But 
not  in  what  actually  happens  in  Washing- 
ton. And  that's  what  it  lost  over  time." 

Characteristically,  Sullivan's  self- 
defense  manages  to  make  a  slight  dig  at 
his  predecessors.  "I  could  have  decided, 
when  I  took  over,  that  I  was  going  to  prove 
that  a  gay  man  was  going  to  be  as  boring 
as  anyone  else,"  he  says.  He  adds,  "I  think. 


Sullivan's  article  in  The  Sunday  Times 


sent  Marty  over  the  moon/7  says  a  colleague. 


MJ22SE3I 


if  you  look  back,  you'll  find  the  shift- 
while  it's  there— is  not  that  drastic.  People 
saw  more  of  it  than  was  there,  because  they 
associated  it  with  a  gay  man.  'Oh,  that's 
what  they  do.'"  But  it  wasn't  a  matter  of 
whether  the  magazine  had  enough  sobri- 
ety: in  the  past,  TNR.  has  been  both  lively 
and  serious.  Sullivan,  one  distressed  staffer 
mourned,  "pulled  off  the  feat  of  becom- 
ing at  once  less  serious  and  more  boring." 
The  telling  thing  is  that  most  of  the  re- 
cent criticism  of  T.N.R.  isn't  about  ideol- 
ogy. Almost  no  one  interviewed  for  this 
story  reported  turning  against  the  maga- 
zine because  of  its  politics,  and  though 
Sullivan  was  the  first  editor  of  T.N.R. 
ever  to  call  himself  a  conservative,  the  mag- 
azine hasn't  really  moved  farther  right, 
except  perhaps  in  its  reflexive  criticism  of 
President  Clinton.  The  magazine's  politics — 
the  mission  on  which  it  has  lived  for  more 
than  eight  decades— have  come  to  seem, 
in  its  ninth,  curiously  beside  the  point. 

Housed  on  the  sixth  floor  of  a  nonde- 
script modern  office  building,  The 
New  Republic  has  moved  a  long  and 
democratic  way  from  its  founding  era, 
when  the  first  editors  gave  themselves 
a  wine  cellar,  dining 
room,  and  French 
chef.  The  hall- 
ways and  carpets 
are  a  slightly  dirt- 
ied beige,  and  the 
primary  decoration  is  framed  cov- 
ers of  old  issues. 
Leon  Wieseltier's  frowning  pug  dog. 
Stuffy,  stands  like  a  bad  omen  in  the 
doorway  that 
leads  from  the 


back  to  the  magazine's  offices— a  fitting 
herald  for  the  antagonisms  that  seethe 
within  the  corridors  beyond. 

Be  warned:  coming  in  on  the  middle 
of  these  feuds  at  Tire  New  Republic  is  a 
little  like  visiting  the  ancient  hatreds  of  a 
large  family  locked  in  bitter  embrace 
over  petty  grievances  that  happened  too 
long  ago  for  anyone  to  remember  the  truth 
of  them.  Their  passions  will  never  entire- 
ly make  sense  to  anyone  not  of  the  clan. 
So  it  is  with  Wieseltier  versus  Sulli- 
van, the  major  grudge  that  lay  beneath 
the  drama: 

See,  Leon  thinks  Andrew  was  a  source 
for  Lloyd  Grove's  devastating  1995  pro- 
file of  him  in  Vanity  Fair . . . 

No,  it's  that  Andrew  wanted  to  run  a 
story  by  British  journalist  Dominic  Law- 
son,  after  Lawson  wrote  a  letter  to  Vanity 
Fair  applauding  the  Wieseltier  profile. 
And  Marty  backed  up  Leon  and  made 
Andrew  kill  the  piece  when  it  was  already 
in  page  proofs  . . . 

No,  it's  that  Leon  was  outraged  by  An- 
drew's decision  to  publish  the  Bell  Curve 
excerpt,  and  outraged  Andrew  in  turn  by 
taking  his  case  to  Peretz's  wife,  Anne  . . . 
No,  it 's  that  Leon  was  wounded  to  the 
core  when  his  father  died  in  March  and 
Andrew  was  the  only  staff  member  not  to 
express  sympathy  . . . 

All  these  bits  of  history  and  more  were 
offered  to  explain  the  animus  that  clearly 
underlay  Wieseltier's  angry  remarks  to 
Tlie  Washington  Post  on  the  day  of  Sulli- 
van's resignation  announcement.  Those  re- 
marks were  not  the  fruit  of  an  indiscreet 
moment:  Wieseltier  was  later  heard  to 
boast  that  he  had  asked  the  Post  reporter, 
Howard  Kurtz,  for  some  time  to  ponder 
what  he  wanted  to  say,  and 
then  called  him  back  to  de- 
liver the  insults  he  had 
composed.  "I  don't  think 
he  was  going  to  be  hap- 
py until  Andrew  was  hu- 
miliated," says  a  won- 
dering colleague.  (Wie- 
seltier himself  would  not 
be  interviewed  for  this 
article.) 

When  Sullivan  start- 
ed at  the  magazine,  first 
as  an  intern  and  then  as 
a  junior  editor  in  the  "back  of  the 
book,"  Wieseltier  was  his  champion. 
"My  ward,"  Wieseltier  liked  to  call  him, 
and  he  encouraged  Peretz  to  edge 
Hertzberg  out  of  his  second  tenure  as 
editor  in  Sullivan's  favor.  When  Sullivan 
learned  he  was  H.I.V.-positive,  it  was  to 
Wieseltier  that  he  turned.  But  over  time 
their  relationship  soured.  Wieseltier  let 

VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 








friends  know  that  he  was  constantly  whis- 
pering against  Sullivan  into  Peretz's  ear. 
"I  think  Marty  gets  it  now,"  he  told  one 
friend  after  Ferguson's  essay  about  The 
New  Republic.  In  March,  as  the  44-year- 
old  Wieseltier  sat  shivah  in  his  father's 
Sheepshead  Bay,  New  York,  home,  some 
companions  consoled  him  by  talking 
shop.  "The  end  is  near"  for  Sullivan, 
Wieseltier  told  them. 

More  than  anything,  this  feud  reflect- 
ed a  chronic  sickness  in  the  magazine's 
structure:  Wieseltier,  who  reigns  over  the 
literary  part  of  the  magazine,  always 
seems  to  end  up  conniving  against  the 
person  who  edits  the  rest  of  it.  "Leon  un- 
dermines whoever  the  editor  is,  more  or 
less  automatically,"  says  one  old  T.N.R. 
hand.  Says  another  former  staffer,  "This 
is  not  Leon's  relationship  with  Andrew, 
this  is  Leon's  relationship  with  anybody. 
He's  done  it  to  everybody,  for  a  decade 
and  a  half.  He  will  do  it  to  Michael  Kelly." 
Only  in  a  universe  ruled  by  Marty 
Peretz  could  such  a  problem  be  allowed 
to  continue.  Everyone  who  knows  Per- 
etz, 56,  agrees  that  loyalty  is  his  crown- 
ing virtue:  "You  can  have  a  huge  fight 
with  Marty,  slamming  doors,  'Fuck 
you,'  and  still  call  him  up  the  next  day 
and  say,  'By  the  way,  I  need  $10,000  for 
my  kid's  operation,' "  says  his  friend  Mi- 
chael Sean  Winters. 

But  the  downside  of  the  Peretz  style 
is  that  he  runs  his  magazine  as  a  fief- 
dom,  whose  tenants  are  subject  to  his 
towering  rages  and  personal  attacks.  (I 
was  once  a  bystander  to  one  of  these 
rages,  at  a  party  in  the  magazine's  of- 
fices. It  was  like  watching  someone  have 
a  seizure,  or  a  heart  attack— some  truly 
involuntary  but  overwhelming  medical 
condition.)  Peretz  is  also  capable  of  pet- 
ty vengeance:  for  example,  when  writer 
Michael  Lind  decamped  to  The  New 
Yorker,  after  Sullivan's  departure,  he  got 
a  letter  by  Federal  Express  informing 
him  that  the  magazine  had  ordered  its 
bank  to  stop  payment  on  his  final  pay- 
check, covering  the  last  two  weeks  in 
April— because  he  hadn't  filed  any  copy 
since  April  12. 

Of  all  those  to  whom  Peretz  has 
pledged  loyalty,  Wieseltier  is  first  among 
equals.  The  two  met  when  the  younger 
man  was  a  scholar  of  medieval  Jewish 
history  at  Harvard's  Society  of  Fellows, 
and  Peretz  appointed  him  literary  editor 
in  1983.  Apparently  no  amount  of  bad 
5  behavior  on  Wieseltier's  part— drinking 
|  bourbon  in  staff  meetings,  for  example,  or 
hitting  on  the  magazine's  limited  female 
I  population— can  threaten  a  relationship 
that  is  described  by  others  as  "unshak- 

VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


Leon  Wieseltier  at 

the  American  Museum 

of  Natural  History  in 

New  York.  Because  of 

Wieseltier,  the 

editor's  job  is  "a  suicide 

mission,"  one 

former  staffer  argued. 


HUM 


able"  and  "indestruc- 
tible," "an  impenetrably 
strong  thing."    Peretz 
puts    Wieseltier    in    a 
class  with  T.N.R.  s  earli- 
er literary  editors  Ed- 
mund Wilson,  Malcolm 
Cowley,    and    Alfred 
Kazin.  "They  were  in-     >/ 
tellectually  formidable  *"^ 
figures,  as  Leon  is  an   - 
intellectually    formida-  ■»  -^— 
ble  figure,"  he  says. 

Because  Wieseltier  i***,al 
and  Peretz  are  so  close,  whoever  serves 
as  editor  usually  finds  himself  the  odd 
man  out.  "At  any  time,  you  can  be 
squashed  from  above  by  Marty,  or  knifed 
from  the  side  by  Leon,"  says  one  insider. 
"Imagine  a  magazine  owned  and  edited 
by  Nixon,  with  Kissinger  as  the  literary 
editor.  Imagine  the  atmosphere  of  work- 
ing there!" 

Those  who  know  Peretz  well  believe 
that  he  encourages  the  tension,  con- 
sciously or  not,  as  a  mechanism  for 
keeping  the  magazine  firmly  under  his 
own  control.  And  some  staffers  believe 
this  triangular  structure  is  the  entire  ex- 
planation for  the  fireworks  closing  Sulli- 
van's tenure.  "You  end  up  in  this  psy- 
chodrama,"  argues  one  former  staffer, 
"no  matter  how  sane  and  professional 
you  are  otherwise.  Because  one  of  these 
two  guys  is  your  boss,  and  the  other  runs 
half  the  magazine.  .  .  .  It's  kind  of  like  a 
twisted  family,  where  Leon  and  Marty 
are  the  mother  and  father,  and  all  the 
children  are  assigned  a  role,  like  scape- 
goat, or  martyr.  You  can't  just  say,  'I'm 
only  an  exchange  student  here.'" 

But  there  is  another  facet  of  the  story 
on  which  almost  everyone  agrees: 
that  Andrew  Sullivan  was  a  terrible 
manager.  Current  and  former  staffers  de- 
pict him  in  scorching  terms,  as  a  talent- 
ed man,  but  a  petty,  inconsistent,  lazy, 
and  sometimes  cruel  boss.  Even  Michael 
Lewis,  a  defender  of  Sullivan's,  acknowl- 
edges, "There  are  a  lot  of  people  who 
hate  Andrew.  ...  If  Andrew  had  a  flaw 
as  editor— and  he  did— it  was  his  ability 
to  manage  people." 

Former  colleagues  portray  Sullivan 
as  baldly  taking  credit  for  other  people's 
ideas,  their  work,  even  their  jokes.  "He 


I  A 


couldn't  share  anything  with  anyone 
when  it  comes  to  power  and  glory  and 
credit,"  says  a  current  staff  member. 
"But  when  it  came  to  sharing  the  blame, 
well,  he  was  good  at  that."  Once,  sever- 
al staffers  told  me,  when  Ruth  Shalit 
was  a  few  minutes  late  to  the  morning 
staff  meeting,  Sullivan  stalked  into  her 
office.  As  it  happened,  she  was  on  the 
phone  with  someone  in  Russia,  a  source 
she  had  been  trying  to  reach  for  a 
month.  "Get  the  fuck  off  the  phone!"  he 
screamed,  and  disconnected  the  call. 
"When  I  say  the  meeting  is  starting,  I 
mean  it's  starting." 

And  Sullivan  was  absent  a  good  deal. 
"The  joke  was  he  would  Rollerblade  in 
at  11  and  would  Rollerblade  out  at  3," 
says  Evan  Smith.  On  the  weekend  Yitz- 
hak Rabin  was  assassinated,  Sullivan 
couldn't  be  found.  Wieseltier  was  heard 
around  the  office  muttering  sarcastical- 
ly, "Well,  nothing  important  happened; 
it's  not  like  Larry  Kramer  died." 

Some  of  Sullivan's  absences  may  have 
had  to  do  with  his  illness,  former  col- 
leagues now  realize.  But  many  were  tied 
to  book  writing  and  promoting,  and  to 
giving  speeches.  "And  he'd  come  back," 
says  one  observer,  "and  look  at  the  mag- 
azine that  was  put  out  in  his  absence, 
and  say,  'My,  this  magazine  has  really 
suffered  in  my  absence.'  And  he'd  work 
foi  a  day  and  then  say,  'I'm  exhausted— I 
have  to  go  home  early.'"  Among  those 
who  had  loyally  served  the  magazine  for 
a  long  time,  there  was  the  angry  sense 
that  Sullivan  was  using  it  to  promote 
himself.  "I  don't  think  he  understood 
there  was  such  a  thing  as  the  institution 
of  TJie  New  Republic  before  he  got 
there,"  rays  one  of  his  critics. 

"Andrew,"  this  former  colleague  con- 

59 


lid 


inijli 


tinues,  "is  strangely  oblivious,  often,  to 
people's  reactions  to  things  he  does.  .  .  . 
I  sometimes  think  there's  a  parallel 
I  here's  the  one  most  people 
agree  is  going  on,  and  there's  the  one 
Andrew  sees." 

A  visit  to  Sullivan's  apartment,  a  loft- 
like space  in  a  renovated  schoolhouse. 
does  much  to  explain  the  magazine's  de- 
scent into  solipsism.  Painted  white,  fur- 
nished in  spare  Mission  style,  it  has  a 
monkish  quality;  the  bathroom  seems 
the  most  personalized  part  of  this  home. 
There  are  hung  his  Harvard  graduate 
diploma,  a  framed  cover  from  the  noto- 
rious Bell  Curve  issue  of  T.N.R.,  and, 
over  the  toilet,  a  large  framed  black-and- 
white  portrait  of  .  .  .  Andrew  Sullivan, 
shot  by  Annie  Leibovitz  for  the  Gap. 

In  conversation  Sullivan  is  affable, 
endlessly  patient  with  his  explanations, 
and— as  I  already  knew  from  a  passing 
acquaintance  with  him— quite  charming. 
He  reads  me  parts  of  "a  really  classy  let- 
ter" he  recently  got  from  Pat  Buchanan, 
wishing  him  all  the  best.  "He's  tribal." 
Sullivan  observes.  "More  than  he  thinks 
of  me  as  a  homosexual,  he  thinks  of  me 
as  an  Irish  Catholic  boy." 

Yet  Sullivan  shows,  at  many  turns, 
the  unconscious  self-regard  his  former 
employees  have  described.  It's  under- 
standable that  he  wanted  to  shed  the 
secrecy  that  he  had  kept  around  his 
H.I.V.  status  for  almost  three  years,  for 
example.  But  the  way  he  recounts  his 
decision  to  reveal  it  is  striking:  "To  say 
good-bye  to  everyone  at  The  New  Re- 
pit  hlie  without  telling  them  what  I'd 
gone  through  wasn't  fair  to  me."  he 
says.  "I  deserved  it,  I  felt." 

It  is  possible  to  understand  most  of 
the  magazine's  recent  problems  as  the 
fruit  of  a  narcissism  that  now  seems 
rampant  there,  and  that  also  seems  a  re- 
flection of  the  man  who  ran  it  for  five 
years.  The  combination  of  Sullivan's  self- 
absorption  and  the  underlying  culture 
bred  by  Peretz  and  Wieseltier  appears,  in 
the  reports  of  T.N.R.  s  saddened  loyalists, 
to  have  been  a  toxic  brew. 

"An  opinion  magazine,  by  definition, 
violates  lots  of  rules  of  journalism," 
notes  T.N.R.  White  House  correspon- 
dent Matthew  Cooper.  "I  think  the  dan- 
ger is  that  when  you  dispense  with  one 
set  of  conventions  you  can  become 
more  lax  about  others."  Unless  a  maga- 
zine like  T.N.R.  practices  rigorous  self- 
restraint,  it  is  prone  to  arrogance  and 
self-indulgence. 

Michael  Lewis,  for  example,  shows 
the  most  benign  possible  face  of  the  ail- 

60 


ment.  Even  when  it  is  self-referential, 
his  campaign  reporting  this  year  has 
had  an  energy  and  sinewy  humor  that 
are  rare  and  precious  things  in  the  tired 
genre  of  primary  coverage.  But  some- 
times he  is  allowed  to  press  his  navel- 
gazing  too  far— as  when  he  wrote  his  fa- 
mously humid  1994  "Diarist"  about 
"the  weird  degradation"  of  being  mar- 
ried to  a  gorgeous  part-time  model, 
whose  body  he  described  in  panting  de- 
tail. (He  and  wife  Kate  Bohner  are  now 
separated,  and  his  recent  relationship 
with  MTV's  Tabitha  Soren,  reportedly 
begun  while  he  was  writing  about 
MTV's  political  activity,  led  to  another 
minor  flap.) 

The  darker  face  of  the  magazine's 
narcissism  is  offered  by  the  strange  ca- 
reer of  Ruth  Shalit,  which  reflects  the 
flaws  of  the  place  like  a  fun-house  mir- 
ror. Between  July  of  1994  and  July  of 
1995  Shalit  published  four  stories  that 
included  pilfered  material.  Sullivan's 
response  was  to  keep  throwing  her  at 
ever  bigger  targets,  including  The 
Washington  Post.  In  that  article,  she 
drew  a  $20  million  libel  suit  by  report- 
ing, wrongly,  that  a  local  business- 
man had  been  imprisoned  for  corrup- 
tion. Finally,  in  February,  a  fact  check- 
er noticed  before  publication  that  a 
Shalit  piece  on  Lamar  Alexander  had 
lifted  some  material  from  David 
Broder,  dean  of  the  political-journalism 
establishment— an  act  as  close  to  self- 
immolation  as  it  is  possible  for  a  Wash- 
ington scribe  to  commit.  At  last  the 
magazine  put  her  on  leave  and  advised 
psychiatric  help. 

One  reason  Shalit's  employers  were 
so  slow  to  act,  colleagues  say,  was  that 
she  and  Sullivan  had  established  a  kind 
of  reciprocal-admiration  society.  "There 
was  a  mutual  hustle  going  on  there," 
observes  one.  "Andrew  got  her  to  be- 
lieve she  was  his  Nellie  Bly.  And  she 
was  playing  this  role  of  'I'm  just  a  kid, 
and  you're  sponsoring  me.'" 

It  is  also  clear  that  Shalit's  transgres- 
sions were  dealt  with  from  the  start  as 
an  entirely  personal  problem— she  was  a 
member  of  the  family,  to  be  encouraged 
or  disciplined,  but  never  expelled.  Per- 
etz and  Sullivan  now  say  all  the  right 
things  about  the  seriousness  of  her  of- 
fenses, and  the  importance  of  getting  to 
the  root  of  what  Peretz  calls  "a  neurotic 
compulsion."  But  their  remarks  still 
show  an  almost  otherworldly  disconnec- 
tion from  the  normal  rules  of  act  and 
consequence.  (They  also  show  a  certain 
silly  gallantry,  perhaps  the  result  of 
spending  too  little  time  in  the  company 


of  smart  women  who  don't  ask  for  spe- 
cial allowances.)  "When  you're  trying 
to  make  a  splash,  things  like  this  do  oc- 
casionally happen,"  says  Sullivan.  "I'd 
rather  be  accused  of  being  too  loyal  to 
someone  than  of  cutting  a  25-year-old 
off  at  the  knees." 

It's  not  as  if  she  did  it  on  purpose, 
Peretz  argues;  she's  too  .  .  .  special  to 
have  stolen  intentionally  from  the  infe- 
rior hacks  she  plagiarized.  "If  you  use 
David  Broder's  words,"  he  says  dismis- 
sively.  "what  are  you  stealing?  This  isn't 
someone  stealing  a  wonderful  idea  or  a 
beautiful  phrase.  .  .  .  It's  like  you  walk 
in  the  country  and  you  pick  up  a 
flower.  There's  a  field  of  daisies  and 
you  rip  off  one  flower." 

When  Shalit  was  finally  put  on 
leave,  the  top  editors  still  made  no 
statement  explaining  what  she  had  done 
or  why  it  was  wrong— either  to  the  staff 
or  to  the  world  at  large.  She  remained 
on  the  masthead.  "It  was  like  Uncle 
Henry  got  committed,  but  no  one  talks 
about  it  around  the  dinner  table,"  says 
a  staffer. 

Stranger  still.  Uncle  Henry  may  be 
coming  home  soon.  Peretz  told  me  that 
"she  has  been  dealing  with  this  matter 
herself,  with  professional  help."  When 
she  has  conquered  the  problem,  he  said, 
"I  would  think,  in  not  a  very  long  time, 
she  will  be  back  in  our  pages." 

Less  than  a  week  later,  when  I  called 
Shalit  to  request  an  interview,  she 
phoned  back  to  say  cheerfully  that  she 
was  too  busy— on  deadline  with  an  as- 
signment from  The  New  Republic. 

as  Andrew  Sullivan  fired?  Both 
he  and  Peretz  say  not,  and  neither 
will  discuss  the  details  of  their 
April  1 1  meeting.  But  I  spoke  to  five 
sources  who  say  they  heard  directly 
from  Peretz  that  he  did  fire  Sullivan. 
He  has  also  dumped  on  Sullivan  to 
many  people,  saying  he  was  brusque,  a 
morale  bruiser,  indifferent  to  politics, 
unschooled  in  American  life,  "mean." 

By  this  spring  even  Peretz  was  con- 
cerned about  the  office's  morale  prob- 
lems. He  was  exasperated  with  Sulli- 
van's air  of  annoyance  at  being  an- 
swerable to  the  owner.  And,  sources  say, 
he  was  increasingly  disturbed  by  the 
feedback  he  was  hearing  on  T.N.R.  s 
contents.  Says  Michael  Sean  Winters, 
"After  the  Camille  Paglia  thing,  the 
comments  in  the  letters  Marty  was  get- 
ting from  old  friends— friends  from  as 
far  back  as  the  60s— were  not  This  is  a  | 
bad  piece.'  They  were  'This  is  the  last 
straw.'  Norman  Lear  wrote  one.  .  .  .  Mar- 

VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


ty  wrote  back   along  the  lines  of  "1 
don't  disagree  with  you.'" 

But  it  is  likely  that  what  really  hap- 
pened was  some  version  of  the  old  sce- 
nario in  which  A  says,  "I  quit,"  and  B 
says,  "You  can't  quit;  you're  fired."  Ap- 
parently Sullivan,  who  was  as  restive  as 
everyone  else  at  T.N.R.,  had  finally  re- 
solved to  step  down.  After  publication 
of  his  highly  praised  first  book,  Virtual- 
ly Normal:  An  Argument  About  Homo- 
sexuality, he  had  signed  a  second  con- 
tract with  Knopf  to  write  a  book  on 
friendship;  early  this  year,  he  had  also 
signed  a  lucrative  deal  to  write  a  week- 
ly column  for  The  Sunday  Times  of 
London.  His  friends,  he  says,  "were  all 
bored  silly  by  the  question  of  when  I 
should  leave  The  New  Republic:  I  had 
been  thinking  seriously  about  it 
since  last  August." 

Over  dinner  on 
Wednesday,     April 
10,  he  told  his  good 
friend     Joe     Raguso 
that  he  had  a  meeting 
with  Peretz  scheduled 
the  next  day,  and  that 
he  intended  to  tell  him, 
"It's  time  to  move  on." 
His  plan,  he  said,  was  to 
suggest  a  transition  period 
that    would    extend    well    into    the 
summer,  giving   Peretz  a  chance  to 
find  a  successor;  Sullivan  was 
confident   that   he   would   .. 
able  to  stay  on  at  the  maga- 
zine as  the  "TRB"  columnist. 

But  Peretz  apparently  responded 
abruptly,  telling  Sullivan  to  step 
down  immediately.  It  would  have 
been  galling  for  Peretz  to  be  rejected 
by  an  editor  about  whom  he  was  field- 
ing so  many  complaints— and  whom  he 
may,  in  fact,  have  been  considering  fir- 
ing. It  also  would  not  have  been  the 
first  time  Peretz  had  taken  someone's 
resignation  personally,  nor  the  first 
time  he  had  told  others  that  he  had 
fired  an  editor  who  went  away  believ- 
ing that  he  had  quit.  (Peretz  and  for- 
mer editor  Hertzberg  had  conflicting 
accounts  of  Hertzberg's  first  departure, 
in  1985.)  In  turn,  one  can  see  how  Sul- 
livan might  have  felt  goaded  by 
Peretz's  behavior  into  what  Michael 
Lewis  delicately  calls  his  "diplomatic 
errors"  since  stepping  down. 

In  any  case,  Sullivan  and  Peretz  have 
by  now  made  a  workable  truce.  When 
a  family  is  really  crazy,  its  sons  and 
daughters  have  a  way  of  sticking 
around.  Sullivan  will  stay  on  the  mast- 
head as  a  senior  editor,  writing  occa- 


sionally, and  will  have  an  office  and, 
crucially,  his  health-insurance  benefits. 

But  the  "TRB"  slot  goes  to  his  suc- 
cessor, who  will  become  the  only  editor 
besides  Kinsley  to  try  writing  the  week- 
ly column  while  running  the  magazine. 
Peretz  settled  on  Michael  Kelly,  39, 
after  running  through  an  impressive  list 
of  candidates,  including  The  New  York- 
er's David  Remnick,  The  Atlantic's 
Nicholas  Lemann,  Newsweek  Interna- 
tional's Michael  Elliott,  Fortune's  Joseph 
Nocera,  T.N.R.  s  own  executive  editor, 

Issues  of  The  New  Republic  from 

1915,  1960,  1985,  and  1990. 

Sullivan,  mourned  a  staffer,  managed  to 

make  it  "at  once  less  serious 

and  more  boring." 


Margaret  Talbot,  The  Washington  Post's 
Howard  Kurtz,  and  Princeton  history 
professor  Sean  Wilentz.  Some  applied 
for  the  job;  others  turned  aside  over- 
tures from  Peretz,  who  quite  visibly 
reveled  in  running  this  talent  show. 

Almost  inevitably,  Peretz  ended  up 
hiring  someone  who  had  a  long  re- 
lationship with  the  magazine—some- 
one who  was  family.  Though  Kelly  has 
never  been  an  editor  before,  the  choice 
made  several  kinds  of  sense  (if  not 
quite  as  much  sense  as  it  did  to  Peretz, 
whose  press  release  announcing  the  ap- 
pointment compared  Kelly  to  Thucyd- 
ides).  As  a  freelancer,  Kelly  had  filed 
distinguished  coverage  of  the  Persian 
Gulf  War  for  T.N.R.,  and  went  on  to 
write  a  widely  praised  book  about  the 
conflict,  Martyrs'  Day.  In  his  features 
for  GQ,  among  others,  and  as  a  politi- 
cal writer  for  The  New  York  Times  and 


then  The  New  Yorker,  he  has  shown 
solid  instincts  for  the  franchise— the 
nuts-and-bolts  coverage  of  politics— that 
Sullivan  disdained.  And  Kelly's  politics 
are  similar  to  Peretz's,  according  to  one 
who  knows  both  men  well.  "They're  es- 
sentially both  conservative  Democrats, 
just  barely  kind  of  hanging  on  to  being 
Democrats  of  any  sort." 

Kelly  has  a  weighty  enough  reputa- 
tion that  his  appointment  may  stanch 
the  magazine's  bleeding  until  such  time 
as  the  patient  can  actually  be  revived— 
which  seems  to  be  the  trade-off  for 
appointing  an  editor  who  can't  come 
to  work  until  the  next  election  cycle. 
Staff  members  showed  a  relief  bor- 
dering on  exultation.  "All  I  can  say  is, 
reports  of  the  death  of  The  New  Repub- 
m  lie  were  greatly  exaggerated," 

says  Matthew  Coop- 
er. "People  who  said 
this  magazine  is  los- 
ing its  stuff,  it's  irrel- 
evant, it's  not  impor- 
tant anymore,  are  going 
to  have  to  think  twice 
now   that   one   of  the 
most  acclaimed  young 
reporters  in  the  country 
is  taking  the  tiller." 
It  is  true  that  T.N.R.  's  journal- 
,  j&l  istic  problems  are  eminently  fix- 
able.  But  it  remains  to  be  seen 
whether    Kelly    can    escape    the 
punishing   dynamics   at 
the  top  of  the  masthead. 
Kelly  points  out  that  he 
has  known  both  Peretz  and  Wiesel- 
tier  for  more  than  half  a  decade. 
"These  are  people  I  have  consid- 
ered friends  for  years,"  he  says. 

Then  again,  Wieseltier  was  initially 
enthusiastic  about  all  three  of  Kelly's 
predecessors.  Because  that  support  al- 
ways turns  to  bile,  insists  a  former 
staffer,  the  job  is  "a  poisoned  chal- 
ice. ...  I  just  think  it's  kind  of  a  suicide 
mission." 

In  any  case,  the  magazine's  loyalists 
will  be  watching.  Watching,  and  gossip- 
ing, and  sometimes  even  remembering 
why  anybody  gives  a  damn  about  what 
goes  on  in  the  offices  of  a  political  jour- 
nal whose  circulation  barely  touches  six 
figures.  Jefferson  Morley,  a  former 
T.N.R.  staffer,  sums  it  up:  '"Why  do  we 
care  about  The  New  Republic'!  Because 
it  was  once  a  hot  magazine  and  now  it's 
not?  No.  Because  it's  a  vehicle  for 
imagining  the  possibilities  of  American 
politics.  In  all  the  buckraking  and 
celebrityhood,  it  got  lost  that  that's 
what  the  magazine  is.  That's  all  it  is."  □ 


VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


61 


I 


,.  •".'."- 


Name:  Alison  Elliott.  Background:  Born  in  San  Francisco,  lived  in  Tokyo  as  a  child.  Credits:  The  Underneath;  BBC's  The  Bucca- 
neers; Indictment  for  HBO;  Wyatt  Earp;  this  month,  The  Spitfire  Grill;  and,  now  in  production,  W/ngs  of  the  Dove,  based  on  the  Henry 
James  novel.  Education:  "I  went  to  life  college— I'm  still  in  it."  Favorite  possession:  "I  have  a  rock  that  I  like  a  lot."  Mission: 
"Surprising  myself  and  saying,  'I  didn't  know  I  could  do  that.'"  Best  invitation:  "The  French  loved  The  Underneath,  so  I  got  invited 
to  their  Bitches  in  Film  festival-that's  roughly  how  it  translates.  I  was  thrilled  to  be  invited,  but  I  couldn't  go."  -Michael  musto 


NITY  FAIR/AUGUST  1996 


Photograph  by  EIKA  AOSHIMA 


63 


True  Lies  VI 


A  campaign  season  of  political  insincerity 


THE  STUMP  SPEECH...  "Ladies  and  gentlemen,  the  next  president  of  the  United 
States."  "Distinguished  guests  ..."  "Friends  ..."  "Loyal  campaign  workers  ..." 
"As  I  travel  all  across  this  great  nation  ..."  "People  continually  ask  why  I'm  running." 
"And  I  always  tell  them  the  same  thing."  "I  have  a  vision  for  America."  "A  kinder,  gen- 
tler America."  "A  shining  city  on  the  hill."  "A  place  called  Hope."  "It's  morning  in  America." 
"I  believe  in  change."  "I'm  going  to  throw  away  my  prepared  speech  here."  "I'm  going  to  let  you  see  the  real  me."  "I'm  a  sim- 
ple public  servant."  "A  champion  of  the  middle-class  voter."  "I'm  not  a  Washington  insider."  "I  have  not  forgotten  my 
roots."  "It's  time  we  end  this  beltway  mentality."  "It's  time  to  end  welfare  as  we  know  it."  "It's  time  we  end  the  im- 
perial presidency  "I  don't  want  less  government,  I  want  better  government."  "If  America  can  send  a  man  to 
the  moon,  we  can  fix  our  cities."  "Save  our  forests."  "Help  our  farmers."  "Teach  our  children."  "Stop  this  violence." 
"But  health  care  comes  first."  "Reducing  the  deficit  is  my  top  priority."  "I  will  not  pander  to  special-interest  groups."  "I  will 
not  cave  in  to  big-money  contributors."  "I  am  not  surrounded  by  spinmeisters."  "This  is  a  grassroots  campaign." 
"7  respect  my  opponent's  abilities."  "I  welcome  a  third-party  candidate."  "I'm  going  to  be  like  Truman."  "I'm  going  to  be 
the  education  president."  "The  environment  president."  "The  foreign-policy  president."  "I  will  not  be  the  first  to  go 
negative  with  my  advertising."  "The  choice  is  clear."  "It  won't  be  politics  as  usual."  "I'm  running  on  my  record."  "Elect 
me,  get  her  free."  "I  feel  your  pain."  "It's  the  White  House  or  home."  "Let  Nixon  be  Nixon." 

THE  PRESS  CONFERENCE  ...  "Good  morning."  "It's  nice  to  see  you  all  here."  "I'll  answer  all  your  questions. "  "But  first,  let  me  make 
one  thing  perfectly  clear."  "Read  my  lips."  "The  buck  stops  here."  "It's  the  American  people  I  care  about."  "I'm  only  interested 
in  doing  what's  right. "  "I  am  not  running  to  win  a  popularity  contest."  "It's  a  question  of  character."  "I  stand  on  my  record." 
"The  facts  are  clear."  "I  already  explained  that."  "I'm  looking  into  the  maid  issue."  "My  position  on  abortion  is  clear."  "I  did  not 
come  to  Washington  to  get  rich."  "It  was  a  blind  trust."  "I  wasn  't  paying  attention  to  the  investments. "  "I  don't  see  it  as  a  conflict 
of  interest."  "I  was  never  in  that  hotel  room. "  "I  was  not  in  the  meeting."  "I  was  not  in  the  loop."  "I'll  have  to  check  my  records. " 
"I  welcome  the  opportunity  to  clear  the  air."  "I'll  debate  my  opponent  anywhere. "  "We're  working  out  the  details."  "No  comment." 
"I  already  answered  that  question."  "I'll  have  to  get  back  to  you  on  that."  "To  the  best  of  my  knowledge. "  "As  far  as  I  can  re- 
member." "I  can't  recall."  "1  in  not  hiding  behind  the  flag. "  "It  was  a  bipartisan  commission."  "A  fact-finding  tour."  "Politics 
played  no  role  in  the  decision."  "I  have  not  flip-flopped."  "I  have  not  changed  my  position."  "I  am  not  dissembling." 
"It  was  an  honest  mistake."  "I  believe  in  consensus."  "I'm  not  asking  for  any  favors. "  "My  ego  is  not  involved."  "You  can  fol- 
low me."  "I  stand  behind  him  1,000  percent."  "There's  no  need  for  a  special  prosecutor."  "This  is  not  Watergate. "  "I  welcome 
the  inquiry."  "I'm  confident  I  will  be  cleared."  "!  will  not  give  credence  to  my  opponent 's  allegations  with  an  answer. "  "To 
the  best  of  my  recollection  ..."  "The  fingerprints  prove  nothing."  "You  can  quote  me  on  that."  "It's  off  the  record. "  "I'm 
not  going  to  criticize  the  administration  on  that  issue."  "I  take  full  responsibility. "  "My  conscience  is  clear."  "I  don't  follow  the 
polls. "  "I  think  our  message  is  getting  through."  "7  put  my  faith  m  the  American  people. "  "I  did  not  inhale."  "I  did  not  dodge 
the  draft."  "7  wish  my  opponent  good  luck. "  "Dole/Gingrich."  "Democrat-war. "  "I  expect  to  win."  "I've  got  time  for  only  one 

more  question."  "Anonymous." "The  hard  way."  "Triangula/ion. "  "I  am  not  a  crook." 

THE  DAY  AFTER  ...   "And  so.  my  fellow  Americans  ..."  "The  people  have  spoken." 
"The  best  man  won.    "I  look  forward  to  working  with  him  in  the  future."  "It's  the 
dawn  of  a  new  era."  "Time  to  heal  the  wounds. "  "This  is  not  the  end,  but  a  new  beginning." 
'We  gave  it  our  best  shot."  "I  wouldn't  do  anything  different."  "I  don't  blame  the  press."  "I'm 
oing  to  play  Monday-morning  quarterback."  "It's  time  to  put  aside  our  differences  and 
work  for  the  common  good."  "I'm  not  thinking  about  a  recount."  "I  am  not  consider- 
ing another  run."  "We're  going  to  take  a  good  long  rest."  "/  in  keeping  my  options  open. " 
"I'm  sure  Ovitz  will  come  through  on  his  promise  of  a  job  at  Disney."  "The  system  worked." 
"I  believe  in  America."  "In  God  we  trust."  "One  nation  indivisible."  "I'd  like  to  be  re- 
membered as  a  patriot. "  "You  won't  have  Nixon  to  kick  around  anymore."    -BRUCE  FEIRSTEIN 


VANITY  FAIR/AUGUST  1996 


Tke  artirt  fr  a  le^eMrt. 


(cj  tWt  silver  *creen} 


^r                                              ^^.^1    .i^^^^H 

■                      *    *-                    \ 

1     A|R  SINCE 

EXP.  DATE            \  %i. 

!ni]|at''.  >«  - 

oo/oo     m,      <v 
1                   |K»»vusU 

PAINTED    by    ANTHONY     QUINN 


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own  an  original: 

PRIVATE  ISSUE! 


Use   it  where  you   see   this  sign 


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CARD 


http://www 


issue.com 


Coward  illustrated:  Marc  Boxer  rendition  of 
Coward  at  the  keys;  below,  Noel  and  Gertrude 
Lawrence,  mano  a  mano,  in  Private  Lives 
at  the  Phoenix  Theatre  in  September  1930. 


eary  of  beer  blasts  and 
beach  books  that  are  the 
literary  equivalent  of  a 
corn  dog?  Evince  effort- 
less end-of -summer  sophis- 
tication by  using  PHILIP 
HOARE'S  Noel  Coward- A 
Biography  (Simon  &  Schus- 
ter)  as  a 
cocktail  tray.  Better  still, 
commit  it  to  memory 
and  drop  it  into  dry  and 
scathingly  witty  cocktail- 
party  banter  whilst  stab- 
bing olives  and  the  oc- 
casional deserving  back. 
Fire    Island    beach 
reading:  You  go,   girl! 
JULIAN  FLEISHER  points 
out  the  watering  holes, 
mating  calls,  identifiable 

markings,  and  plumage  of  TJie  Drag  Queens  of  New 
York:  An  Illustrated  Field  Guide  (Riverhead).  DAVID 
MIXNER,  the  prominent  gay  fund-raiser  and  friend 
of  President  Clinton's,  candidly  shares  his  25 
years  behind  the  lines  toiling  for  civil  and  gay  rights  in 
Stranger  Among  Friends  (Bantam).  Hollywood,  from  its 
"H.I.V.I.P.'s"  to  its  devious  dermatologists,  is  laid  waste 
in  BRUCE  WAGNER'S  wild  and  mercilessly  funny  I'm  Los- 
ing You  (Villard).  CORIN  REDGRAVE,  brother  of  Vanessa 


and  Lynn,  recalls  the  life  and  bisexual 


loves  of  the  thespian  dynasty's  revered 
/  /  //  ' /'-"x-  patriarch  in  Michael  Redgrave:  My 
l^J      '     M      Father  (Richard  Cohen  Books). 

The  good,  the  bad,  and  the  ugly: 
NELSON  D.  LANKFORD  tips  his  hat 
"~\\  to  diplomat,  spymaster,  and  country 

f\      " — ^—      \      gentleman  David  K.  E.  Bruce  in  The 
mamm         -™*     ,.      Last  American  Aristocrat  (Little,  Brown). 
Finding  a  Form  (Knopf)  is  literary  big 
man  WILLIAM  H.  GASS'S  third  collection 
of  inventive  and  inspiring  essays  on  art,  culture, 
nature,  and  writing.  CHRISTOPHER  S.  WREN'S 
Hacks  (Simon  &  Schuster)  is  a  satirical  skewering 
of  foreign  correspondents  chasing  stories  and 
tail  in  a  war  zone.  In  The  Road  to  Hell  (Grove/ 
Atlantic)  PAUL  LIBERATORE  probes  the  bloody  link 
between  white  radical  lawyer  Stephen  Bingham  and 
his  Black  Panther  client  George  Jackson,  who  led 
the  infamous  San  Quentin  massacre.  Spooky 
goth  novelist  JOYCE    CAROL    OATES  flirts 
with  unnatural  attraction  in  her  maiden  illus- 
trated novella.  First  Love  (Ecco).  The  work  of 
the  self-taught  visionaries  of  the  outsider  art 
movement  is  the  subject  of  Raw  Creation 
(Phaidon),  by  JOHN  MAIZEL.  And  the  late  brutish  actor 
KLAUS  KINSKI  was  an  unrepentant  defiler  of  under-age 
girls  and  force  of  (bad)  nature,  according  to  the  appalling- 
ly fascinating  Kinski  Uncut:  The  Autobiography  of  Klaus 
Kinski  (Viking).  Quick,  martini  me!       — elissa  schappell 


Sandra  Bullock,  actress: 

The  Greatest  Secret  in  the  World, 

by  Og  Mandino  (Bantam). 

"It  was  given  to  me 

by  Mattheiv  McConaughey 

on  the  set  of  A.  Time  to  Kill. 

It's  really  special. " 


John  Carpenter, 

director  of  Escape  from  L.  A.: 

Fuhrer-Ex:  Memoirs  of  a 

Former  Neo-Nazi, 

b]  Ingo  Hasselbach  with  Tom  Reiss 

(Random  House). 

"It's  a  chronicle  of  a  young  main 

journey  into  and  out  of 

neo-Nazi  terrorism.  It's  gripping 

material—  another  reminder 

of  how  very  fragile 

our  hold  upon  a  common 

humanity  truly  is." 


66 


Helmut  Kohl, 

chancellor  of  Germain 

Remembering  My  Good  Friends, 

by  George  Weidenfeld 

(HarperCollins). 

"The fascinating 

autobiography  of  a  great 

personality  and  publisher 

of  our  time,  a  truly 
European  cosmopolitan." 


Morgan  Freeman, 

actor: 

Last  Go  Round. 

by  Ken  Kesey  (Viking). 

"Typical Kesey — 

very  well  thought-out, 

well-rounded  story  about  the 

first  Pendleton,  Oregon. 

competitive  roundup  — 

bronc-busting  in  the 

early  1900s.  Great  stuff." 


VANITY  FAIR/ AUGUST  1996 


They  say  the 

new  Saturns  are 

a  lot  quieter. 


I  guess  I'll  just  have  to 
take  their  word  for  it. 


ffk  it  just  us,  or  is  it  getting  compartment  is  sheathed  with  a  superefficient,  space-age 

louder  out  there?   Because,  material  which  absorbs  noise  and  vibration  like  a  sponge, 

boy,    it    sure    seems    like,  Even  the  exterior  was  painstakingly  redesigned  to  reduce 

wherever    we    go,    all    we  wind  noise.  All  in  an  effort  to  make  this  one  of  the  quietest 

hear  is  noise,   noise,   noise.  small  wagons  on  the  road  today.  Q  And  you  should  have 

It  almost  makes  you  wish  someone  would  go  take  the         WM&5*  seen    Saturn   owner  and    mothei    ol    twin   girls   Chris 

ruy  who  invented  the  car  horn  out,  and — well,  honk  at         SATIRN-        Vachon's  reaction  when 

liim.  Actually,  we've  gone  ahead  and  done  the  next  best  we    told    her    all    this.    She 

Ehing:  we've  made  the  interior  of  the  new  Saturns  signifi-  smiled  and  said,  very  politely, 

lantly  quieter.  Q  Take  our  new  wagon,  for  example.  Tucked  "I'm  sorry,    I   didn't  hear  a 

Iway  inside  the  door  panels  are  several  layers  of  sound-  word  you    said;   would  you 

Chris  Vachon,  Saturn  atener.  says,  "All  I 

Headening    materials    including    Thinsulate.    The    engine  repeat  that  please?"  So  we  did.        mr /»»■  io  WAAAAAA.  WOOF,  WOOF. "' 

k    Different   Kind   of  Company.    A    Different    Kind   of  Car. 

\bis  1996  Saturn  SW1  has  an  M.S.R.P.  of  $12,385,  including  retailer  prep  and  transportation.  Of  course,  the  total  cost  will  vary  seeing  boa-  options  arc  extra,  a.'  are  thing.* 
\ke  tax  an,)  license.   We  'd  be  happy  to  provide  mare  detail  ol  1-800   ^22-  WOO  or  look  for  a.<  an  the  Internet  at  blip://,, .saturncars.com.  O/O'/i  Satam  Corporation. 


Neiman  Markup 


LeRoy  Neiman — still  middlebrow  after  all  these  years 


chlockmeister  or  Norman  Rockwell  of  the  mil- 
lennium? LeRoy  Neiman  has  made  millions  off 
his  enduring  pop  sensibilities,  and  this  month  he 
marks  his  fifth  turn  as  unofficial  "artist  of  the 
Olympic  Games."  george  wayne  reviews  the 
decades  with  the  painter  who  has  proved  to  be  an 
old  master  at  self-promotion. 


George  Wayne:  You  just  gifted  Columbia  University  with  $6 
million  to  their  School  of  the  Arts.  Why? 
LeRoy  Neiman:  Columbia's  art  department  should  be  the 
strongest,  and  it's  going  to  be.  Columbia  is  in  New  York, 
where  the  biggest  art  business  is.  Why  shouldn't  it 
have  the  greatest  art  department? 
G.W.  And  part  of  it  will  be  the  LeRoy  Neiman  Cen- 
ter for  Print  Studies.  Tliat  has  a  nice  ring  to  it. 
L.N.  Right  there,  in  the  center  of  the  campus. 
G.W.  How  did  you  get  this  long-running  gig 
as  the  unofficial  artist  of  the  Olympics? 
L.N.  Roone  Arledge  lived  across  the 
street  from  me,  and  asked  me  to 
The  first  [time]  was  in  1972. 
G.W.  That  had  to  have  been 
something.  The  1972  Olympics, 
the  Munich  massacre  . . . 
L.N.  Yeah  ...  I  was  there,  with 
Jim  McKay  and  all  those  peo- 
ple. We  were  all  staying  at  the 
Sheraton  near  the  Olympic  Village.  At 
that  time,  there  was  no  security.  Any- 
body could  walk  into  the  Olympic 
Village  and  hang  out.  One  morning 
at  around  five,  we  got  a  call  that 
there  was  a  disturbance  in  the 
Village.  We  took  my  car     ^       ^  . 
and  went  over  there.  We  I?  "- 

saw  the  whole  thing— we        * 
stayed  hours  and  hours.     \  • 
Some  of  the  victims  were 
on   the   Israeli   wrestling 
team,  too,  whom  I  had  just 
drawn  a  couple  of  days  before 
at  the  opening-day  march. 
G.W.  You've  known  Hugh  Hefner 
for  many,  many  years  . . . 
L.N.  From  before  the  magazine.  At 
this  stage  in  my  life,  he's  one  of  my  old- 
est friends,  actually.  We  met  because  I  was  doing  women's 
fashion  drawings  for  this  milliner  in  Chicago.  Hef  was  a 
copywriter  in  the  men's  store,  and  he  was  doing  a  cartoon 
book.  He  did  all  the  drawings,  all  the  captions,  and  he  got  it 
published.  I  knew  there  was  something  special  there.  There 


was  a  mood  going  in  Chicago,  of  skin  magazines.  But  they 
were  all  trashy,  with  third-rate  advertising.  And  we  met  on 
the  street  one  day,  and  he  had  started  this  magazine,  with 
quality  advertising,  and  Marilyn  Monroe  was  on  the  cover. 
I  illustrated  a  story  about  jazz  and  won  the  Chicago  Art 
Directors  Club  award. 

G.W.  Did  you  ever  go  to  any  of  the  orgies  at  the  Playboy 
Mansion? 

L.N.  My  God!  Those  were  firsts  for  everybody,  new  experi- 
ences for  everyone  involved.  I  used  to  carry  a  tape  measure. 
And  every  girl  I'd  see  I  would  measure,  to  see  if  she 
was  the  perfect  34-26-34.  But  we  could  never  do 
that  today. 

G.W.  Weren  't  you  also  there  when  Marilyn  Mon- 
roe sang  "Happy  Birthday"  to  J.F.K.  at  Madison 
Square  Garden? 

L.N.  I  did  a  painting,  and  it  is  in  Madison  Square 
Garden.  I  got  Marilyn  singing  in  there,  carrying 
that  birthday  cake  in.  I  got  Adlai  Stevenson, 
L.B.J. ,  Bobby— the  whole  gang.  It  was  a  sen- 
sational affair.  At  that  time,  to  accept  a 
commission  to  paint  some  of  these 
events  was  considered  bad  taste. 
G.W.  Wliy  is  it  that  art  snobs  so  disdain 
LeRoy  Neiman? 

L.N.  I've  never  tried  to  analyze  it,  but  I'd 
like  to  say  they're  coming  around.  They 
are  coming  around.  All  the  things  that  I've 
been  taken  to  task  for  over  the  years:  Play- 
boy and  my  identification  with  them;  tele- 
vision art,  which  is  another  form  of  mak- 
ing money;  silkscreens,  where  I  made  tons 
of  money— everything  that  I  have  touched 
^^^^^^^      has  clicked.  Things  that 
they  took  me  to  task 
for  are  now  what  they 
want  the  artist  to  do. 
G.W  You've  been  around 
the  world  many  times 
over.  You  've  met  every- 
one of  any  consequence. 
Wluit  else  is  there  left  for 
LeRoy  Neiman  to  do? 
L.N.  It's  always  new. 
Thirty  years  ago  people 
walked  differently,  they 
moved  differently,  they 
looked  different.  They're  hu- 
man beings.  You  never  have 
to  worry  about  seeing  too 
much  of  the  world,  because 
it  just  keeps  renewing  itself. 


Paint  or  sinner: 

Olympic  artist 

LeRoy  Neiman. 


68 


VANITY  FAIR/AUGUST  1996 


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Above,  angelic  Beverly  Johnson  with  saintly  Bob  Evans 
at  Carrier's  launch  of  the  Tank  Francaise  watch;  top,  model 
Frederique  is  uplifted  by  the  Cartier  pages. 


F 


MODEL    BEHAVIOR 

ellini-esque"  is  not  an  adjective  that  could  have  been 
applied  to  the  launch  party  for  Dolce  Vita,  a  new 
Christian  Dior  perfume,  at  the  Plaza's  Grand  Ball- 
room. The  opening  of  the  Chanel  Boutique  in  New 
York,  on  the  other  hand,  was  swelligant,  to  say  the 
least,  while  the  European  theme  continued  at  the  par- 
ty Cartier  threw  to  launch  its  new  Tank  Francaise  watch 
at  New  York's  former  B.  Altman  building. 


Chanel  surfing:  Above,  superdeb  Stella  Tennant  throws 
off  heat  while  Karl  Lagerfeld  cools  himself  down 
at  the  Chanel  Boutique;  right,  Iman  gives  Sandra  Bernhard 
and  Isaac  Mizrahi  an  anatomy  lesson. 


Above,  model  Georgina  Robertson 
at  Christian  Dior's  perfume  launch; 
below,  Maria  Trezise,  Lisa  Salomon, 
and  Marion  von  Burchard  at  the 
opening  of  the  Chanel  Boutique. 


Patricia  Duff  Perelman  and  Vernon  Jordan 
at  the  Africa:  The  Art  of  a  Continent  awards 
program,  at  the  Guggenheim. 


THE    ASPHALT    JUNGLE 

I  s  they  say,  whores,  politicians,  and  buildings  all  be- 
ll come  respectable  with  age.  The  architect  Philip 
/ 1  Johnson,  whose  buildings  have  made  many  a  sky- 
line respectable,  was  in  fine  fettle  at  his  90th-birthday 
party  at  MoMA.  while  at  the  New  York  Public  Li- 
brary's Centennial  Literary  Lions  benefit  even  Norman 
Mailer,  who  has  been  known  to  take  a  swing  at  fel- 
low party  guests,  behaved  impeccably.  Other  fat  cats 
in  attendance  were  Edward  Albee,  Maya  Angelou, 
Joseph  Heller,  William  Kennedy,  and  Toni  Morrison. 


Johnsonians:  Philip  Johnson  and 

Douglas  S.  Cramer  at  Johnson's  90th-birthday 

party  at  MoMA. 


Various  nonwriters  attended  the  Centennial  Literary  Lions  benefit  at  the  New  York  Public  Library,  including,  /eft, 
Michael  Fuchs,  Bianca  Jagger,  and  Barry  Diller.  Above,  /eft,  sometime  novelist  Brooke  Astor,  Randall  Bourscheidt, 
Paul  LeClerc,  and  Mrs.  Felix  Rohatyn;  right,  literary  stars  Betty  Friedan,  Ved  Mehta,  and  Norman  Mailer. 


VANITY  FAIR/AUGUST  1996 


Photographs  by  DAFYDD  JONES 


71 


Bored  by  her  socialite  existence  as 
the  wife  of  MTV  creator  Bob  Pittman, 
Sandy  Hill  Pittman  took  her  energy, 
glamour,  and  instinct  for  the  media  spotlight 
in  another  direction:  scaling  each 
continent's  highest  peak.  In  May,  on 
Mount  Everest,  she  almost  died  in  a  blizzard 
that  killed  eight  fellow  climbers. 
JENNET  CONANT  reports  on  one  woman's 
never-ending  quest  for  the  heights 


. 


uman  beings  were 
not  designed  to 
survive  in  thin  air. 
Those  who  stay 
up  too  high,  too 
long,  will  eventually  be 
overcome  by  the  alti- 
tude. This  is  the  rea- 
son climbers  refer  to  all  peaks  above 
26,000  feet  as  "the  Death  Zone." 
Mount  Everest,  at  29,028  feet,  is  par- 
ticularly lethal.  So  when  Sandy  Hill 
Pittman  reached  its  fabled  summit  at 
roughly  2:30  p.m.  on  May  10,  she 
wasted  no  time  celebrating,  even  though 
it  was  an  achievement  she  had  been 
working  toward  for  a  lifetime. 

Pittman,  41,  had  more  at  stake 
than  the  other  climbers  who  had 
plunked  down  around  $65,000  for 
the  chance  to  stand  at  the  world's 
apex.  Years  earlier,  bored  with  life 
as  the  socialite  wife  of  MTV  creator 
Bob  Pittman  (estimated  worth,  more 
than  $40  million),  she  had  transformed 
a  girlhood  enthusiasm  for  mountain- 
eering and  adventuring  into  a  high- 
profile  outlet  foi  hei  energy  and 
ambition.  What  had  I  gun  as  a  hobby— 
trekking  in  the  Himal  tyas,  horseback 
riding  across  Kenya,  and  kayaking  in 
the  Arctic  Circle— evolved  into  a  pas- 
sion, a  purpose,  an  identity.  Long  be- 
fore she  left  New  York  fc  Nepal  on 
March   21,   Pittman  had  succeeded 

82 


in  fashioning  a  romantic 
role  for  herself  as  a  dar- 
ing adventuress,  a  sort  of 
modern-day  Amelia  Ear- 
hart.  Sporting  La  Perla 
lingerie  under  her  Gore- 
Tex,  she  had,  in  her  own 
words,  traded  "the 
escalator  at  Berg- 
orf's"   for   more 
exotic  terrain.  "She's 
very    inspiring    in 
that  she  finds  a  way 
to  live  life  to   its 
imits."  says  her  pal 
Nina  Griscom.  Not 
everyone    agrees. 
"She's  a  show-off." 
says    one     friend 
with  a  shrug.  "When  she  went  kayak- 
ing in  the  East  River,  she  would  call 
up  everyone  she  knew  and  tell  them 
she  was  passing.  Then  she'd  get  writ- 
ten up  in  the  columns,  which  is  ex- 
actly  what    she   wanted.    She    is   a 
beautiful  California  girl,  but  she  has 
a  lot  of  chutzpah." 

Everest  was  the  last  peak  in  Pitt- 
man's  grand  plan  to  become  the  third 
woman  in  history  to  scale  the  Top 
Seven,  the  highest  mountains  on  each 
continent.  The  experience  would  pro- 
vide an  operatic  finale  to  her  book- 
in-progress,  already  titled  Summits  of 
My  Soul,  and  bring  her  one  step  clos- 
er to  realizing  her  dream  of  becom- 
ing a  sportswoman  with  media  tie-ins, 
the  Martha  Stewart  of  mountaineering. 
A  tireless  promoter,  Pittman  tackled 
the  publicity  with  the  same  zeal  she 
applied  to  her  demanding  training 
regimen,  which  included  running  up 
the  26  flights  to  her  Central  Park 
West  apartment  eight  times  daily. 
(That's  208  flights.)  Before  the  trip, 
she  modeled  climbing  gear  for  Vogue 
and  made  arrangements  with  NBC 
fo  her  electronic  diary  to  be  trans- 
mitted  from  Everest  (via  satellite  phone) 


and  posted  on  the  World  Wide  Web 
Her  farewell  party  at  Nell's,  throwr 
by  society  columnist  Billy  Norwich 
was  attended  by  admirers  including 
Andre  Balazs,  owner  of  the  Chateau 
Marmont  hotel,  Bianca  Jagger,  anc 
Calvin  Klein.  Pittman  arrived  in  full 
climbing  regalia,  including  crampon;] 
and  ice  ax.  Others  were  treated  to  I 
glimpse  of  Sandy  in  a  snowsuit  when 
the  determined  mountaineer  was  fea4 
tured  on  postcards  with  her  Web  adJ 
dress  and  a  picture  of  herself  hangin 
jauntily  off  a  cliff.  ("All  of  the  ex\ 
citement;  none  of  the  risks,"  the 
promised.  "Tie  on-line  with  Sandl; 
Hill  Pittman.") 

She  could  not  have  put  more  pres* 
sure  on  herself  to  succeed  on  this 
her  third   Everest  attempt.   Her  ob^ 
session   had  cost   her  hundreds  m 
thousands  of  dollars  and  ultimate! 
her    16-year  marriage.   In  October' 
her  husband  moved  out  and  is  no\ 
involved  with  Veronique  Choa,  el 
tranged  wife  of  David  Breashears, 
climber  with  whom  Sandy  Pittma 
had  attempted  to  scale  the   Kang 
shung  Face  of  Everest  in   1994.  Fo 
several   months,   Pittman   agonize< 
over  her  marriage  and  whether  to  leav 
her  12-year-old  son,  Bo,  for  the  twc 
and-a-half-month  Everest  trip  in  th 
midst  of  a  divorce.  At  the  last  minute 
however,  she  leapt  at  the  opportun 
ty  to  join  an  expedition  with  an  emf 
ty  slot.  Leaving  her  son  in  the  car 
of  her  mother,  she  set  out  once  mor 
to  conquer  the  mountain. 


WITH  A  LITTLE  "^^■■B 

HELP  FROM  MY  FRIENDS 

From  far  left:  the  late  Scott  Fischer  with  Sandy  Pittman, 

whose  group  he  led;  guide  Rob  Hall  died  trying  to  save  a 

client;  Pittman  chats  via  satellite;  Charlotte  Fox  and 

Tim  Madsen  in  Kathmandu,  Nepal;  a  fatality  (not  from  May's 

expedition)  on  the  mountain,  where  the  dead  remain 

to  chasten  the  living;  Russian  climber  Anatoli  Boukreev 

rescued  Pittman  and  others;  after  coming  off  Everest, 

Pittman  and  party  arrive  in  Kathmandu. 


tie 


res 


0! 


ittman's  team  was  organized 
by  Scott  Fischer,  a  40 -year- 
old  professional  guide  who 
co-founded  the  Seattle-based 
trekking  company  Mountain 
Madness.  With  three  guides  and 
seven  Sherpas,  Fischer  would 
lead  eight  clients  (two  turned 
i(  back)  up  the  Southeast  Route,  which 
[he  jokingly  dubbed  "the  yellow  brick 
ei  road"  because  of  its  popularity  among 
wealthy  amateurs  who  do  not  shrink 
at  the  fact  that  for  the  600  who  have 
summited  there  have  been  142  deaths. 
Before  attempting  the  summit,  Fisch- 
jer's  team  spent  a  month  at  Base  Camp, 
small  tent  city  at  17,600  feet,  from 
which  they  hiked  to  higher  elevations,  con- 
ditioning their  lungs  and  collecting  more 
than  two  tons  of  garbage  left  by  the 
io|trekkers  who  now  swarm  to  the  moun- 
es  tain.  Pittman,  described  by  Mountain  Mad- 
ness as  a  "competent  climber,' '  performed 
ai  well  and  pulled  her  weight  on  the  team, 
according  to  Fischer's  reports.  She  was, 
in  fact,  a  good  deal  more  experienced 
3  than  some  of  those  in  other  expeditions. 
May  10,  the  anniversary  of  the  pre- 
vious record,  when  37  climbers  reached 
the  summit,  was  chosen  as  the  day  for 
lithe  ascent.  The  night  before  the  climb, 
about  two  dozen  mountaineers  in  three 
[  groups— Fischer's  team,  a  New  Zealand 
group,  and  a  Taiwanese  group— gath- 
ered. It  was  a  clear  night;  the  moon  was 
huge.  The  next  afternoon,  when  Sandy 


Pittman  hauled  herself  to  the  world's  high- 
est vantage,  she  jubilantly  exchanged  high 
fives  with  the  climbers  already  crowding 
the  peak.  Neal  Beidleman,  the  Fischer 
team's  assistant  guide,  raised  his  arms 
in  victory  when  he  saw  her.  Because  of 
bulky  oxygen  masks,  no  one  could  real- 
ly talk.  Later,  Pittman  said  that,  looking 
down  from  six  miles  high  in  the  sky,  she 
could  "actually  see  the  curve  of  the  earth." 

But  reaching  the  summit  is  only  half 
the  journey— and  most  accidents  happen 
on  the  way  down.  Pittman  was  already 
very  tired;  observers  from  another 
team  say  she  had  to  be  short-roped  by 
a  Sherpa  on  the  way  up,  and  she  was 
the  last  client  in  her  group  to  reach 
the  summit,  with  Fischer  following  as 
rear  guide.  She  didn't  have  time  to  do 
more  than  snap  a  few  pictures.  No 
one  remembers  if  she  had  a  chance  to 
bury  a  cross  necklace  which  she  had 
custom-made  by  jeweler  Barry  Kiesel- 
stein-Cord  for  that  purpose. 

It  was  fortunate  that  she  got  down 
fast,  for  the  next  four  people  (not  in- 
cluding Sherpas).  no  more  than  15 
minutes  behind  her,  ran  into  trouble. 
Makalu  Gau,  a  Taiwanese  climber, 
was  discovered  half  frozen  the  follow- 
ing day  and  was  delivered  from  death's 
door  in  one  of  the  highest  helicopter 
rescues  ever.  Fischer  and  Rob  Hall, 
the  New  Zealand  expedition  leader,  who 
stopped  to  help  his  client  Doug  Hansen, 
would  not  be  so  lucky. 


"Sandy  and  I 
thought  this  was 
the  end  and  just 
curled  up  in 
a  ball  and  waited 
to  die,"says 
Charlotte  Fox. 


Pittman  continued  to  fatigue  badly 
on  the  way  down.  Charlotte  Fox,  an 
experienced  climber  who  had  brought 
along  her  boyfriend  and  fellow  Snow- 
mass  Ski  Patrol  member,  Tim  Madsen, 
kept  an  eye  out  for  her.  "I  focused  on 
trying  to  help  her,"  recalls  Fox,  who 
had  become  friends  with  Pittman  on  a 
previous  expedition.  Neal  Beidleman, 
an  elite  climber  from  Aspen,  helped  Pitt- 
man down  the  Hillary  Step,  a  40 -foot 


83 


crack  in  ihe  ice  named  for  Sir  Edmund 
Hillary,  who— with  bis  Sherpa— became 
the  first  person  to  reach  the  top  of 
Everest,  in  1953.  "Sandy  got  her  cram- 
pons tangled  in  the  ropes,"  he  recalls. 
"I  was  worried.  She  was  stumbling 
and  had  her  ice  ax  in  the  wrong  hand." 

He  walked  with  her  as  far  as  the 
South  Summit,  where  he  stopped  to  check 
on  the  others.  When  he  started  down  20 
minutes  later,  he  saw  Fox  standing  over 
her  friend  waving  a  hypodermic  nee- 
dle. Pittman  was  on  her  stomach,  and 
Fox  had  just  given  her  a  shot  of  dex- 
amethasone,  unzipping  a  back  corner 
of  Pittman's  suit  and  jabbing  the  nee- 
dle into  her  buttocks  right  through  her 
other  clothes.  An  anti-inflammatory 
with  amphetamine-like  side  effects, 
the  drug  is  usually  administered  only 
as  a  last  resort.  But  Pittman  had  asked 
for  it.  She  was  completely  exhausted. 

Beidleman  scrambled  over  to  Dan- 
ish climber  Lene  Gammelgaard  and 
asked  her  to  trade  oxygen  with  Pittman, 
whose  bottle  was  running  low.  He  turned 
her  oxygen  flow  rate  to  high,  which  feels 
like  a  jolt  of  adrenaline.  "It  was  a 
judgment  call,  not  preferential  treat- 
ment," he  says,  explaining  that  he  had 
to  get  her  moving.  "Sandy  was  the 
one  in  the  biggest  trouble  at  that  point." 

Pittman  wanted  to  rest,  but  Beidle- 
man told  her,  "You've  got  to  get  the 
fuck  down  or  you're  going  to  die!" 
Snow  had  begun  to  slow  their  prog- 
ress, a  storm  was  whipping  up  wind, 
and  the  group  was  still  a  three-hour 
walk  away  from  Camp  4,  located  on 
a  little  saddle  called  the  South  Col. 
Beidleman  grabbed  Pittman  by  her  har- 
ness, clipped  himself  to  the  rope,  and 
started  sliding  down  the  fixed  lines, 
pulling  her  after  him.  "We  were  on 
the  edge,"  he  recalls.  "If  she  had  been 
there  alone  she  wouldn't  have  made 
it.  She  was  way  out  of  it.  Sandy  had 
used  her  full  physical  and  mental 
resources  to  attain  the  summit." 

By  the  time  the  storm  hit  full 
force.  !  ;rge  group  of  climbers 
had  descended  the  fixed  ropes. 
Beidlema.'   {  Fox,  Mad- 

sen,  C.   nm  I  and  Kl<  v 

Schoening  r  from  Seat- 

tle, were  all  i  Fischer's 

team.  (Anothei  ie    Mar- 

tin Adams,  had  left  the  ,->      mit  (  i 
er.)  Yasuko  Namba,  a  95-po  .   !  Tap  - 
nese  climber,  had  collapsed  '  .   the 

84 


ropes,  and  Beidleman  pulled  her  to 
the  bottom.  There  was  also  a  guide 
from  Hall's  team,  Mike  Groom,  who 
was  tethered  to  Seaborn  "Beck" 
Weathers,  a  Texas  pathologist  who 
had  given  himself  Everest  as  a  50th- 
birthday  present  but  had  run  into 
trouble  before  reaching  the  summit. 
Two  Sherpas  were  with  them.  They 
had  to  scream  just  to  be  heard  over 
the  roaring  50-mile-per-hour  gusts.  It 
was  dark  now,  with  whiteout  condi- 
tions. There  was  no  way  to  tell  which 
direction  led  back  up  or  down.  Half 
blind  and  battered  by  the  wind,  the 
group  scattered  in  different  direc- 
tions on  the  saddle  between  Lhotse 
and  Everest.  There  were  sheer  drops 
on  each  side. 

Beidleman  rounded  up  the  group  and 
got  them  to  huddle  together,  backs  to 
the  wind.  They  fell  into  a  huge  dog 
pile,  sitting  or  lying  in  one  another's 
laps,  beating  their  friends  and  ac- 
quaintances, yelling  profanities— any- 
thing to  stay  awake.  All  were  now 
out  of  oxygen.  With  the  windchill 
lowering  temperatures  to  100  degrees 
below  freezing,  the  climbers  were 
shaking  uncontrollably  from  hypo- 
thermia. If  anyone  passed  out,  death 
would  be  imminent. 

Sometime  around  midnight,  the 
storm  subsided,  the  stars  came  out,  and 
the  climbers  decided  to  make  a  mad 
dash  for  safety.  But  Namba  was  bare- 
ly conscious,  and  Pittman  and  Fox  were 
too  weak  to  walk.  "Our  knees  were 
buckling."  recalls  Fox.  Beidleman  re- 
members shouting  at  Pittman  that  she 
had  to  keep  going.  She  tried  to  crawl, 
but  couldn't.  If  someone  didn't  go 
for  help,  "we  would  all  be  Popsicles 
by  morning,"  Beidleman  said. 

Madsen,  still  strong,  elected  to  stay 
with  Charlotte  Fox,  who,  like  Pittman, 
had  sat  down  in  the  snow.  They  were 
fading  fast.  "We  sat  down  to  con- 
serve energy,  and  so  we  wouldn't  walk 


off  the  mountain,"  says  Fox.  "The  wind 
was  blowing  and  I  couldn't  open  myi 
eyes.  I  concentrated  on  staying  alive." 

Schoening,  Gammelgaard,  and 
Beidleman  took  off,  and,  as  it 
turned  out,  they  were  only  a 
quarter-mile  from  camp.  But 
by  the  time  they  collapsed  at 
the  tents,  they  were  gasping  for 
breath.  It  was  1:30  a.m.  Bei-! 
dleman  told  Anatoli  Boukreev, 
a  burly  Russian  guide,  that  the  others 
were  in  grave  danger.  Boukreev,  38,  a] 
world-class  climber  who  grew  up  in 
the  Ural  Mountains,  had  returned  from 
the  top  hours  before.  He  set  out  im-j 
mediately.  But  the  storm  had  picked  I 
up  again.  There  was  zero  visibility. ; 
After  an  hour,  he  returned.  Beidle- 
man and  Schoening,  dehydrated  and|| 
trembling  violently,  tried  desperately  tof 
supply  directions. 

Meanwhile,  as  Fox  later  recalled,  she 
and  Sandy  Pittman  had  completely 
given  up.  By  three  a.m.  they  had  been  | 
out  30  hours.  They  had  no  water. 
Their  food  was  frozen  solid.  "Sandy 
and  I  thought  this  was  the  end  and  I 
just  curled  up  in  a  ball  and  waited  to 
die,"  says  Fox.  "Tim  had  a  better  at- 
titude. He  said,  'Beat  Sandy  on  the 
back!  Rub  her  arms!  Move  your  legs!' 
I  said,  'No,  leave  me  to  die.  Nobody's 
going  to  save  us.'" 

But.  after  searching  for  30  minutes, 
Boukreev  saw  a  light.  He  heard  Mad- 
sen  yelling.  (Continued  on  page  143m 


SHE  STOOPS  TO  CONQUER 

Sandy  and  now  estranged  husband  Bob  Pittman 
at  the  Rita  Hayworth/Alzheimer's  Association 
gala  in  1992.  Insets,  left  to  right  Sandy  sports  a  cast 
at  the  ballet  with  Bob  in  May  1995;  Sandy  with 
role  model  Martha  Stewart  at  a  1991  hoedown  for 
the  Literacy  Volunteers;  courting  headlines  in 
a  dress  of  newspaper  print;  dancing  with  Chateau 
v'     tnont  owner  Andre  Balazs  at  Lincoln  Center 

5;  oretty  in  pink  with  walker-decorator 
lefi       Bilhuber  at  the  Metropolitan  Museum's 
e  Institute  gala  last  December. 


jandy  s  too  much  of  a  good  thing-she  climbs  mountains,  drives 
Motorcycles,  and  pilots  her  own  helicopter.  Who  can  relate  to  that?' 


i&s 


ffftt*^ 


B&8& 


.V-" 


Flamenco 


w 


t  seems  to  t 
every  few  generations— the  explosion  of 
interest  in  flamenco  culture  outside  the  confines 
of  Spain.  Before  she  began  Middlemarch, 
George  Eliot  wrote  her  only  verse  drama, 
The  Spanish  Gypsy,  about  the  torrid  connection 
between  freedom  and  romance.  Decades 
later,  the  poetry  of  Federico  Garcia  Lorca  took 
the  rhythms  of  Andalusia  around  the  world, 
before  the  poet  himself  was  silenced  by  tyranny 
The  latest  detonation  of  the  gifane  style 
comes  by  grace  of  Joaquin  Cortes,  a  knife-thin, 
baby-facsd  diminutive  who  makes  the  music 
play  in  time  with  him  rather  than  the  reverse. 
So  electrifying  is  his  interpretation  of  the 
flamenco  culture-which  combines  what  he 
learned  at  Spain's  Ballet  Nacional  with  what 
from  his  Gypsy  family— that  his  stagr 
ice  is  being  "translated"  into  a  slew 
fural  idioms.  You  can  see  him  wooim 


Marisa  Paredes  in  Pedro  Aim 

The  Flower  of  My  Secret.  You  < 

television  endorsement  of  a  new. 

named  the  "Ibiza  Passion."  And  he'stouring  t 

world  witr> 

Gypsy  Passion  ( that  wi 

more  than  four  pounds  during  every] 

which  is  one  way  of  living  for  yourarr. 

"Just  because  I'm  a  dUsS! 
"it  doesn't  m 
with  a  goat  and  ., 

But  call  it  "the  New  Flamenco"  as  often  ds'^ 
you  like,  it's  the  old  flamenco-that  toxieblena 
of  Moorish,  Jewish,  and  Gypsy-that  keeps 
coming,  and  keeplre^Mfifl^nd  nev>er,  dies 


/ 


" 


i 


\ 


V 


,: 

f                     l                                i 

JOAQUIN 
*  CORTES 

I 

He  gpmbines 

^ 

ballet  training  with 
what  he  learned 

*  from  his 
Gypsy  fondly. 

1 

* 

i 

Photographs  by  RUVEN  AFANADOR 


n 


KISS 


As  the  ultimate  film  festival  nears  its 

half-century  mark,  HELMUT  NEWTON  turns  his  camera 

on  the  glamour  and  decadence  of  Cannes,  while 

DAVID  KAMP  eyes  the  tacky,  gaudy  brew  of  starlets, 

art-house  talent,  and  floating  brothels 


ight  from  the 
get-go,  an  air  of 
folly  has  per- 
meated the  In- 
ternational Fes- 
tival of  Film  at 
Cannes.  At  the 
event's  inaugu- 
'  ral,  50  years  ago, 
France's  minister  of  commerce 
and  industry  stood  before  the 
assembled  crowd,  his  mind 
clouded  with  postwar  eupho- 
ria (or  something),  and  an- 
nounced with  great  fanfare  the 
opening  of  "the  first  Festival 
...  of  Agriculture!"  Ever 
since,  Cannes  has  had  a  de- 
served reputation  for  ridicu- 
lousness, what  with  the  catty 
stories  of  jury  infighting,  the 
failure  of  A-list  stars  to  ma- 
terialize, the  indelicate  ques- 
tions posed  to  filmmakers  by 
the  European  press  (Mr.  Lee, 
why  is  it  that  so  many  Amer- 
ican Negroes  are  criminals?), 
and  the  requisite  rush  of  pho- 
tographers toward  some  bux- 
om young  lovely  who  has 
begun  a  striptease  on  the 
Croisette,  the  honky-tonk  spit 
of  Cannes  coast  that  runs 
along  the  Mediterranean. 

Depravity  suits  Cannes- 
goers,  even  if  the  wares  they've 
come  to  flog  are  mostly  art- 
house  films  that,  in  America 
at  least,  will  be  seen  as  en- 
riching, intellectual  counter- 
points to  the  latest  works  of 
Jim  Carrey  and  Adam  Sand- 
ler. A  case  in  point  at  this 
year's  festival  was  Trainspot- 
ting, a  low-budget  Scottish  film 
about  heroin  addicts  by  the 
same  pimply  yob  wraiths  who 
brought  you  last  year's  Shal- 
low Grave.  Suffused  with  the 
open-sore  aesthetic  so  irre- 
sistible to  British  tastemak- 
ers,  Trainspotting  wasn't  even 
shown  in  competition,  but  its 
hipster  cachet  not  to  men- 
tion Miramax's  acquisition 
of  its  U.S.  distribution  rights, 
made  its  Day-Glo  orange 
'  the  ones  everyone 
have,  and  its  par- 
ly everyone  desper- 
ately cla  t(  get  in  to. 
The  Pair.i  a  casino  on 
the  Croisette  >fitted 

90 


as  a  rave  shed  for  the  occa- 
sion, which  attracted  Bono, 
Mick  Jagger,  Oasis's  Noel  Gal- 
lagher, and  sundry  other  fab- 
ulosi,  many  of  whom  could 
still  be  found  carousing  at 
breakfast-time— full  of  booze, 
drugs,  and  themselves.  Even 
the  visiting  Hollywood  exec- 
utive V.P.'s,  accurately  stereo- 
typed as  a  bunch  of  joyless, 
workaholic  orderers  of  five- 
lettuce  salads  and  mineral 
water,  got  caught  up  in  the 
bacchanalian  spirit,  ordering 
wine  with  lunch,  saying  "yes" 
to  foie  gras,  staying  out  till 
four  a.m.,  and,  in  some  cas- 
es, finding  their  way  to  the 
"floating  brothel"  which  was 
moored  a  sufficient  distance 
from  the  coast  to  evade  pry- 
ing eyes. 

Cannes's  It  Boy  of  '96  was 
Ewan  McGregor,  Trainspot- 
ting's buzz-cropped  young 
star,  who  was  further  repre- 
sented by  Emma,  the  latest 
film  to  be  adapted  from  Jane 
Austen,  and  The  Pillow  Book, 
the  most  recent  bit  of  artful 
smut  from  the  British  artful- 
smut  purveyor  Peter  Green- 
away.  Not  to  be  outdone,  the 
Canadian  artful-smut  pur- 
veyor David  Cronenberg  pre- 
sented Crash,  starring  James 
Spader,  Deborah  Unger,  Hol- 
ly Hunter,  Elias  Koteas,  and 
Rosanna  Arquette  (the  last 
playing  a  physically  chal- 
lenged harness-lover)  as  sex- 
ual obsessives  who  derive 
erotic  pleasure  from  partici- 
pating in  high-speed  auto- 
mobile collisions. 

Yet,  for  all  the  provocateur's 
gambits,  this  year's  jury,  pre- 
sided over  by  Francis  Coppo- 
la, chose  to  reward  some  of 
the  festival's  more  subdued 
offerings.  The  Palme  d'Or  went 
to  Secrets  and  Lies,  another 

HOT  SCOT 


Ewan  McGregor  ruled— 

starring  in  three  films 

screened  at  Cannes:  Emma, 

with  Gwyneth  Paltrow, 

Peter  Greenaway's  The  Pillow 

Book,  and  Trainspotting, 

the  film  Miramax 

hopes  will  become  this 

year's  Pulp  Fiction. 


Cannes's 

It  Boy  of '96 

was  Ewan  McGregor 


buzz-cropped 
young  star. 


it 


ROitK': 

arid  :;<; 
of  Kan  -  ■ 
to  hh  : 

RichSiison 
widemHjjgJainici 
wa^nwever,  uk 
Bren^St  Btethyn,  star 

<■•  ami  Lies, ) 


;ir    ;on 
'diret'' 


TERS-IN-ARMS 


■  icia  Arquette  (left) 
I  sa  wife  who 

Sivvs  her  husband  on  a 
rre  cross-country 
fl  eh  for  his  parents  in 
ting  with  Disaster, 
.-losing-night  film  at 
festival.  She  is 
ured  with  her  sister, 
anna  Arquette, 
of  the  stars  of 
id  Cronenberg's 
roversial  Crash,  a  film 
it  sex  and  cars, 
h  debuted  at  Cannes. 


!/-.'     "Tt 


r 


ic  orderers  of  five-lettuce  salads  g< 


** 


-£****, 


'  *  jjl     '"  3 


.« 


/ 


£>|£ 


V 


fine  slice  of  British  working- 
class  life  from  Mike  Leigh, 
while  the  best-actor  award  was 
shared  by  the  French  co-stars 
of  the  sentimental  favorite,  The 
Eighth  Day,  Daniel  Auteuil 
(Jean  de  Florette,  Marion  of 
the  Spring)  and  Pascal  Du- 
quenne,  who  has  Down's  syn- 
drome. And  outside  the 
screening  rooms,  the  most  strik- 
ing aspect  of  the  festival  was 
not  its  decadence  but  its  pro- 
nounced lack  of  V.I.P./nobody 
stratification.  Whereas  Holly- 
wood takes  care  to  secrete  its 
talent  away  in  corner  booths 
and  private  rooms,  anyone  who 
got  in  to  a  Cannes  party  could 
easily  buttonhole  Robert  Alt- 
man  (in  town  to  promote  his 
new  film,  Kansas  City)  or  Pulp 
Fiction  producer  Lawrence 
Bender  and  start  a  pitch,  and 
anyone  who  walked  into  the 
American  Pavilion  during  a 
Bulls-Knicks  playoff  game 
could  cheer  along  with  Spike 
Lee,  who  persuaded  Twenti- 
eth Century  Fox's  Searchlight 
Pictures  and  Miramax's  Har- 
vey Weinstein  to  split  the  cost 
of  a  satellite  feed. 


rri  his  year  marked  the 
J  50th  anniversary  of 
the  first  Cannes  fes- 
tival, but  it  was  only 
the  49th  actual  fes- 
tival. Forty-nine,  need- 
-M—     less  to  say,  is  an  un- 
sexy  number;  the  thought  is 
that  next  year's  version,  the 
true  50th,  will  be  the  most 
vulgar,  besotted,  overhyped, 
overcrowded,  silicone-inflated, 
press-saturated  Cannes  film 
festival  yet.  Hint:  Buy  stock  in 
flashbulb  companies  now.  □ 


CANNES  DO 

From  the  Palm  Beach,  a  casino 
retrofitted  as  a  rave  shed, 
to  the  bar  at  the  Hotel  Majestic, 
where  this  shot  was  taken, 
the  Cannes  social  scene  was  as 
entertaining  as  the  movies. 
Shown  here  with  Eva  Herzigova 
are  Robert  Shaye,  C.E.O.  of 
New  Line  Cinema;  independent 
producer  Michael  Green; 
Rolf  Mittweg,  president  of 
New  Line  International; 
and  Staffan  Ahrenberg  of 
Saga  Pictures. 


* 


>^ 


KYRA 
SEDGtiCK 


:a 


InmmI 


f  lime 

r        r  '' 
a~ioL  o   ik'optfc 


personalities  in 
my  head" 


i*r 


SHE 


w 


her  cr 
ole  King  mane, 
idly  Babysitter, 
pe  who  appears  at  your  door  bearing 
a  guitar  case,  a  clutch  of  Jackson  Browne 
records,  and  a  bag  of  carob  chips,  declar- 
ing, "Tonight  we're  gonna  bake  health 
squares!"  Directors  like  to  use  her  as  an 
earthy,  free-spirited  counterpart  to  more  up- 
tight characters.  In  Oliver  Stone's  Born  on 
the  Fourth  of  July,  she's  Tom  Cruise's  left- 
wing  girlfriend.  In  Lasse  Hallstrom's  Some- 
thing to  Talk  About,  she's  Julia  Roberts's 
mouthy,  protective  sister.  And  in  Mr.  &  Mrs. 
Bridge,  she's  the  Merchant-Ivory  team's 
idea  of  a  wayward  woman. 

"I  have  a  lot  of  people  whose  shoes  I 
want  to  walk  in,"  she  says,  "a  lot  of  personal- 
ities in  my  head."  The  latest:  Lace,  John  Tra- 
volta's romantic  interest  in  the  just-out  Phe- 
nomenon, and  Elizabeth,  a  mother's  helper 
who  becomes  engulfed  in  torturous  goings- 
on,  in  Losing  Chase,  directed  by  Sedg- 
wick's husband,  Kevin  Bacon.  (It  airs  on 
Showtime  in  August.)  They  are  wildly  differ- 
ent, but  they  further  confirm  that  Kyra  Sedg- 
wick is  a  woman  with  whom  you  could  hap- 
pily leave  your  kids.  -DAVID  KAMP 


LAVID  SEIDNER 


2- 


.,-!>. cn."*J  ay  the  Dalai  Lama, 
a«d  his  rival.  Gyaltsen  Norbu 
{opposite),  chosen  b>  the  Chinese 
government,  are  both  claimed 
to  be  the  newest  reincarnation  of  the 
Panchen  Lama,  second  only 
to  the  Dalai  Lasna  in  the  hierarchy 
of  libel  s  hciy  men. 


^Wo  seven-year-old  boys,  one  enthroned  and  the  other  imprisoned, 
ive  become  pawns  in  the  struggle  between  Tibet's  spiritual  ruler  and  the  occupying 
hinese  government.  Where  is  the  true  reincarnation  of  the  10th  Panchen  Lama— 
the  moon  to  the  Dalai  Lama's  sun?  In  the  snowcapped  mountains  on  the 
"of  of  the  world,  ALEX  SHOUMATOFF  searches  for  answers 


only  is  his  life  in  danger,  be  could  be  put  in  a  psychiatr 


I  caught  the  overnight  train 
from  Delhi  to  Pathankot,  a 
grubby  trading  center  on  the 
Punjab  border,  and  from  there 
a  taxi  drove  me  at  breakneck 
speed  up  the  Kangra  Valley, 
swerving  for  an  occasional  rhe- 
sus monkey  grooming  itself 
in  the  road.  In  the  distance 
loomed  the  dazzling,  snow- 
caked  wall  of  the  Dhauladhar 
range,  into  whose  pine-clad 
foothills  we  rose  steeply.  At 
noon  we  pulled  into  Dharam- 
sala,  the  old  British  hill  sta- 
tion where  viceroys  summered 
in  the  heyday  of  the  Raj,  where 
Lord  Elgin  of  the  marbles  is 
buried.  Since  1960  Dharam- 
sala  has  been  the  seat  of  the  Tibetan 
government  in  exile.  Hurrying  through 
its  aromatic,  seminarian  hush,  past  bow- 
ing monks,  I  presented  myself  at  the 
gate  of  the  former  high  commission- 
er's residence,  now  the  home  and  ex- 
ecutive offices  of  the  14th  Dalai  Lama. 
The  head  of  the  exile  government,  he 
fled  Tibet  in  1959  and  is  still  revered 
by  its  six  million  citizens  as  their  rul- 
ing archangel,  despite  the  Chinese 
government's  incessant  efforts  to  vili- 
fy and  undermine  him.  My  side  bag 
was  searched  and  my  person  frisked 
(a  few  months  earlier,  three  opera- 
tives for  Beijing  were  caught  snoop- 
ing around  the  high-fenced  compound), 
then  I  was  escorted  up  to  the  resi- 
dence—a group  of  yellow  buildings,  dis- 
creetly screened  by  conifers,  out  on  a 
spur  with  a  sweeping  view  of  the 
plain  far  below.  Standing  on  a  vine- 
canopied  veranda.  His  Holiness,  in  ma- 
roon robes  and  tinted  glasses,  greeted 
me  with  a  radiant  smile  and  warm 
handclasp.  The  touch  of  this  holy 
man,  who  is  in  many  ways  the  heir  to 
Gandhi,  was  electric. 

It  was  the  dead  of  winter,  and  the 
Dalai  Lama  was  in  the  middle  of  a 
monthlong  retreat  devoted  purely  to 
such  meditations  a;-  chanting  a  par- 
ticular mantra  60,000  times.  Perhaps 
this  was  his  way  of  recharging  himself 
and  generating  the  strength  to  deliv- 
er his  people  from  one  of  the  most 
brutal  occupations  in  modern  history. 
Not  even  his  private  secretary  or  the 
Cabinet  had  access  to  him,  only  the 
attendant  who  brought  him  food.  But 

100 


today  he  was  breaking  the  retreat  to 
grant  several  long-scheduled  or  urgent 
audiences.  This  morning  he  received 
a  green-pantalooned  Steven  Seagal. 
(Nineteen  ninety-six  is  the  Year  of  Ti- 
bet in  Hollywood.  Brad  Pitt  is  play- 
ing Heinrich  Harrer,  the  German 
mountain  climber  who  escaped  from 
internment  in  British  India  during 
World  War  II  and  made  his  way 
north,  over  the  Himalayas,  to  become 
the  Dalai  Lama's  boyhood  tutor;  Mar- 
tin Scorsese  is  working  with  Melissa 
Mathison  on  a  movie  about  the  young 
Dalai  Lama;  and  Seagal  is  doing  an 
action-adventure  film  on  the  C.I.A.'s 
aid  to  the  Tibetan  guerrillas  in  the  60s.) 

Our  meeting  concerned  the  then  six- 
year-old  boy  Gedhun  Choekyi  Nyima, 
whom  His  Holiness  declared  in  May 
1995  to  be  the  reincarnation  of  the 
10th  Panchen  Lama.  Since  the  lOth's 
death  in  1989,  all  Tibet  had  been  ea- 
gerly waiting  for  him  to  come  back. 
But  a  year  ago  the  little  boy  and  his 
parents  were  abducted  by  the  Chinese 
authorities,  and  they  haven't  been  seen 
since.  No  one  knows  for  sure  where 
they  are,  or  even  if  they  are  still  alive. 
As  of  this  spring,  at  least  60  monks 
and  laypeople  involved  in  the  boy's 
discovery  or  in  protests  over  his  ab- 
duction had  been  arrested.  I  was  on 
my  way  to  Tibet  and  Beijing  to  see 
what  I  could  find  out  about  the  fate 
of  this  "soul  boy,"  as  the  Chinese  call 
such  infant  holy  men. 

Late  last  November  the  Chinese  came 
up  with  their  own  six-year-old  soul 
boy,  Gyaltsen  Norbu,  and  on  Decem- 
ber 8  he  was  enthroned  under  tight 
security  at  Tashilhunpo  Monastery, 
the  Panchen  Lama's  traditional  seat  in 
Shigatse,  Tibet's  second-largest  city.  The 
Chinese  leadership  has  been  in  a  fright- 
eningly  belligerent  mood  of  late.  There 
has  been  a  spike  of  repression  not  just 
in  Tibet,  where  political  arrests  last  year 
went  up  to  210  from  124  the  year  be- 
fore, but  throughout  the  People's  Re- 
public. This  latest  salvo  aimed  at  the 
Dalai  Lama  is  particularly  brazen  be- 
cause it  was  the  Fifth  Dalai  Lama 
who  created  the  Panchen  Lama  lin- 
eage in  the  17th  century,  and  now  the 
Communists,  having  done  their  best 
to  destroy  Buddhism  in  Tibet  over  the 
last  45  years,  are  claiming  that  it  was 
their  job  to  find  the  latest  reincarna- 


tion. In  the  Tibetan  panoply  of  "liv- 
ing Buddhas,"  the  Dalai  Lama  and 
the  Panchen  Lama  are  the  sun  and 
moon,  the  queen  and  the  rook;  whichev- 
er of  them  outlives  the  other  leads  the 
search  for  the  deceased's  reincarna- 
tion, which  can  take  years,  and  in- 
volves consulting  a  vision -giving  lake, 
casting  dice,  rotating  doughballs  and 
performing  other  divinations,  combing 
the  countryside  for  auspicious  signs  and 
unusual  children,  and  seeing  how  the 
candidates  react  to  the  previous  in- 
carnation's possessions.  But  the  Chi- 
nese had  dredged  up  an  arcane  prec- 
edent, a  long-forgotten  agreement  the 
Eighth  Dalai  Lama  had  made  with 
the  Ching  emperor  in  1792  that  the 
selection  of  all  Tibetan  living  Bud- 
dhas, including  the  Dalai  and  Panchen 
Lamas,  would  be  done  by  drawing 
lots  from  a  golden  urn  before  the  stat- 
ue of  the  Shakyamuni  Buddha  in  Ti- 
bet's capital,  Lhasa,  and  they  were  using 
it  to  declare  the  Dalai  Lama's  choice 
"illegal  and  invalid,"  so  they  could 
put  in  their  own  kid. 

Why  is  great  China,  1.2  billion 
strong,  with  nuclear  weapons  and  a 
booming  economy,  so  threatened  by 
this  six-year-old  boy?  I  asked  the 
Dalai  Lama. 

"My  opinion  is  that  this  Panchen 
Lama  business  is  nothing  exception- 
al," His  Holiness  said  in  his  expres- 
sive Pidgin  English.  Occasionally  his 
private  secretary,  Tenzin  Geyche 
Tethong,  hovering  over  us  anxiously 
and  obsequiously  like  the  White  Rab- 
bit, would  whisper  a  word  he  was 
fishing  for.  "The  whole  Chinese  atti- 
tude toward  Tibet  is  complete  con- 
trol and  bullying,  whether  education, 
economy,  or  spirituality.  The  key  pol- 
icy regarding  spirituality  is  that  gen- 
uine believers  are  not  loyal  to  the 
Communist  Party.  They  want  the  kind 
of  believer  who  considers  the  party 
number  one  and  Buddhism  secondary." 

Why  didn't  the  Dalai  Lama  wait! 
until  he  had  smuggled  the  boy  out  of 
Tibet  before  announcing  that  he  was 
the  incarnation?  I  wanted  to  know. 
Didn't  he  know  he'd  be  creating  an 
instant  martyr? 

"Honestly  speaking,  it  [smuggling 
the  boy  out]  would  have  been  a 
wrong  act.  The  Chinese  would  have 
had  one  more  reason  to  accuse  me. 


I  lytom,  says  the  Dalai  Lama  of  his  "soul  boy,"  Chookyi  Nyint 


While  I  was  searching  for  the  boy, 
some  lamas  suggested  that  I  choose 
1  one  who  was  out  of  the  country,  but 
I  saw  that  as  more  politically  mind- 
ed. My  main  concern  is  that  the  re- 
incarnation be  genuine." 

His  Holiness  wanted  to  make  it  clear, 
however,  that  he  is  deeply  worried  about 
the  boy's  safety.  "Not  only  is  his  life 
in  danger,  he  could  be  put  in  a  psy- 
chiatric asylum,  drugged,  and  made 
useless,  so  I  am  appealing  to  the  in- 
ternational community  to  continue  its 
concern  not  because  he  is  the  Panchen 
Lama  but  simply  an  innocent  boy  who 
without  any  fault  of  his  own  has  now 
become  the  world's  youngest  political 
prisoner,  which  is  very  sad.  I  feel  if 
the  Chinese  government's  attitude  to- 
ward Tibet  in  general  and  particular- 
ly toward  me  improved  we  could  find 
some  appropriate  solution.  I  want  to 
make  it  clear  that,  despite  this  inci- 
dent, as  soon  as  there  is  some  posi- 
tive indication,  I  am  ready  to  negotiate 
anywhere,  anytime." 

We  posed  for  the  secretary  to  take 
a  snapshot,  and  the  Dalai  Lama  held 
up  between  us  a  poster  of  the  miss- 
ing soul  boy  and  kept  squeezing  my 
forearm  and  kneading  it  lov- 
ingly. As  I  was  about  to  leave 
he  reminded  me  that  the  10th 
Panchen  Lama,  who  died  at 
the  age  of  50,  suffered  years 
of  prison   and  torture,   but 
never  broke,  and  went  to  his 
grave  denouncing  the  Chi- 
nese and  affirming  his  alle- 
giance to  the  Dalai  Lama. 
"Maybe  they  won't  be  able 
to  control  this  one,  either,"  His 
Holiness  mused. 

According  to  the  Buddhist 
view,  most  of  us  are  caught 
on  the  Wheel  of  Life,  on 
which  we  keep  being  re- 
born as  one  of  six  types 
of  sentient  being  (gods, 
demigods,  humans,  "hun- 
gry ghosts,"  animals,  hell 
beings)  until,  usually  af- 
ter innumerable  reincar- 
nations, we  finally  get  it 
right,  at  which  point  we  have  attained 
Buddhahood  and  are  enlightened.  In 
iTibetan  Buddhism,  becoming  a  Bud- 
Idha  involves  helping  our  fellow  sentient 


»M| 


*&&^ 


-* 


Left,  the  10th  Panchen 
Lama  (left)  and  his  regent 
in  Tibet,  1947.  After  he 
died  in  1989  his  embalmed 
body  was  seated  on 
an  altar  at  Tashilhunpo 
Monastery  to  await  his 
reincarnation.  Below,  the 
10th  Panchen  Lama 
(left)  and  the  Dalai  Lama 
in  Lhasa,  Tibet,  1952. 
They  became  close  friends 
despite  efforts  by  the 
Chinese  to  drive  a  wedge 
between  them.  Bottom, 
the  lOth's  50-day  trial  in 
Lhasa,  1964.  He  was 
relentlessly  persecuted  by 
the  Communists— spat 
upon,  punched,  kicked, 
imprisoned,  and,  many 
suspect,  finally  poisoned 
because  he  refused  to 
denounce  the  Dalai  Lama. 


beings  work  their  way  up  through  the 
cycles  of  suffering.  There  is  a  special 
category  of  altruistic  incarnates  called 
tulkus  in  Tibetan,  which  means  "ema- 
nation bodies."  Thousands  of  tulku 
lineages— no  one  knows  exactly  how 
many—have  been  recognized,  and  new 
ones  continue  to  be  created.  The  Dalai 
Lama  is  revered  as  a  manifestation  of 
Avalokitesvara,  who  embodies  the  com- 
passion of  all  Buddhas,  and  the  Panchen 
Lama  is  revered  as  a  manifestation  of 
Amitabha,  the  Buddha  of  Infinite  Light. 
There  are  traditions  in  India  of 
certain  great  masters  being  the  spiri- 


descendants  of  other  great  mas- 
ters of  the  past,  but  no  country  ex- 
cept Tibet  has  institutionalized 
ineages  of  tulkus— reincarnating  holy 
men  at  the  apex  of  its  social  pyra- 
mid. The  Dalai  Lama  has  said  that 
the  fate  of  the  young  Panchen  Lama 
is  ultimately  not  so  worrisome,  because 
if  things  became  unbearable,  the  boy 
could  always  take  a  rebirth.  "To  out- 
side eyes  this  may  seem  harsh,"  a  Ti- 
betan explained  to  me,  "but  the 
Chinese  are  a  small  obstruction.  What 
can  humans  do  to  a  Buddha?"  There 
are  stories  of  highly  realized  tulkus 
dematerializing  under  torture  by  the 
Red  Guard  and  assuming  jaliis,  or 
"rainbow  bodies,"  so  that  one  could 
see  a  candle  flame  through  their 
bodies.  The  12th  Tengye  Rinpoche 
{rinpoche  means  "precious  jewel" 
and  is  a  title  of  adoration  bestowed 


101 


4  4  l!/«Ti 

111  J  1 

HI 

EH 

on  tulkus  and  other  holy  men),  the 
abbot  of  a  monastery  and  a  noted 
scholar,  inexplicably  vanished  from 
his  cell  after  being  interrogated  by 
the  Chinese  in  1959.  No  trace  of  him 
has  ever  been  found.  He  is  believed 
to  have  either  flown  away,  taken  an 
early  rebirth,  or  assumed  a  jalii. 


JJ 


lilMi 


V. 


hen  a  tulku  dies, 
sometimes  his  new 
incarnation  is  not 
found  for  years.  On 
the  other  hand,  some- 
times a  new  incar- 
nation is  born  before 
his  predecessor  has 
died!  The  10th  Pan- 
chen  Lama,  for  in- 
stance, who  was  not 
discovered  until  12  years  after  the 
death  of  the  9th,  had  been  born,  it 
turned  out,  a  few  months  before  the 
9th's  passing.  How  does  this  work?  I 
asked  the  Dalai  Lama.  Can  a  return- 
ing soul  take  over  the  body  of  some- 
one who  already  exists?  "No,"  he  replied. 
"But  two  separate  emanations  from 
the  same  source  can  coexist.  There  are 
several  kinds  of  reincarnation:  One,  the 
previous  self  takes  a  new  body.  Two, 
the  ultimate  source  of  the  reincarnation 
can  multiply  simultaneously,  so  in  that 
case  rebirth  may  not  nec- 
essarily come  after  a 
previous  death.  Two  rein- 
carnations can  happen. 
For  instance,  there  are 
two  of  [the  tulku]  Taklun 
Tsetul,  one  in  central  Ti- 
bet, the  other  in  eastern." 
Often  tulkus  have  mem- 
ories from  their  previous 
incarnations.  Khamtrul  Rin- 
poche,  a  68-year-old  lama  of 
the  Nyingma  order  who  has 
a  monastery  in  Dharamsala, 
remembers  that  as  a  child  "I 
had  a  strange  feeling  that  my 
parents'  house  was  not  mine,  that 
my  possessions  were  not  my 
possessions,  that  this  was  not  real- 


■ 


The  western  entrance  to  Lhasa, 
the  Tibetan  capital,  with  Potala  Square  and, 
in  the  background,  the  Potala  Palace, 
built  in  the  mid- 17th  century.  Inset,  the 
Chinese  Panchen  Lama  ascends 
the  throne  in  Tibet  in  1995. 


e  become  the  new  temples. 


H 


of  the  Dalai  Lamas  was  like  having  success 


ly  my  sister— a  melancholy  feeling  that 
came  usually  at  sunrise  and  sunset.  I 
would  lell  my  mother  and  my  sister 
thai  I  was  going  to  take  them  to  my 
house,  which  was  bigger  than  this 
one  and  had  lots  of  horses,  and  I  would 
describe  the  previous  rinpoche's  house 
right  down  to  the  dogs  and  trees  and 
stream;  he  had  died  three  years  be- 
fore I  was  born.  I  was  always  play- 
ing in  the  plain,  looking  for  someone 
to  come  and  pick  me  up,  and  one 
day  I  saw  a  group  of  people  on 
horses.  They  were  looking  for  a  boy 
who  had  been  born  in  the  Dragon 
Year— the  year  of  my  birth.  I  recog- 
nized their  faces  and  the  horse  the 
late  Khamtrul  used  to  ride.  'You  are 
Tsesum  and  Ugyen,'  I  said  to  two  of 
the  monks.  'Have  you  come  to  take 
me?'  Tsesum  and  Ugyen  were  com- 
pletely shocked." 

One  morning  shortly  after- 
ward, little  Khamtrul  was 
taken  to  a  huge  room  with 
a  table  on  which  religious 
objects— two  drums,  two 
rosaries,  two  cymbals— had 
been  laid  out.  Unfailingly 
he  chose  the  ones  that  had 
belonged  to  his  predecessor. 
This  was  an  absolutely 
classic  discovery,  free  of 
Chinese  interference,  as  was  the  Dalai 
Lama's,  whose  search  party  was  guid- 
ed to  his  house  by  a  vision  on  the 
surface  of  a  lake. 

In  1965,  Robert  A.  F.  Thurman, 
now  a  professor  of  Indo-Tibetan  stud- 
ies at  Columbia  University,  was  or- 
dained as  a  monk  by  Ling  Rinpoche, 
the  Dalai  Lama's  tutor.  (A  few  years 
later  he  renounced  his  robes  and  got 
married.)  Ling  died  in  the  mid-80s,  and 
a  few  years  later  his  reincarnation, 
who  is  now  nine,  was  recognized. 
One  morning,  when  the  new  Ling 
Rinpoche  was  four  years  old,  Thur- 
man dropped  in  on  him  unannounced. 
"There  was  no  opportunity  for  the 
boy's  aides  to  brief  him  on  who  I  was," 
Thurman  told  me,  "because  the  two 
of  us  immediately  went  off  for  a 
walk  alone  in  the  garden.  Suddenly 
he  began  to  scold  me  for  giving  up 
being  a  moi  k.  I  cion't  know  how  he 
could  have  known  about  that— unless 
he  was  recalling  his  previous  life. 

104 


This  is  not  conclusive  evidence  for 
reincarnation,  but  it's  pretty  striking." 

The  tulku  system  is  nothing  if  not 
egalitarian.  New  incarnations  can  be 
found  anywhere,  even  in  the  poorest 
nomad  families— 12  of  the  Dalai  Lamas 
were  born  to  commoners— so  the  whole 
population  is  invested  in  the  process. 
The  system  prevented  the  building  up 
of  dynasties  and  reduced  family-related 
corruption.  The  tulku  had  lifetime 
tenure,  so  he  didn't  have  to  worry  about 
holding  on  to  power,  and  thus  could 
concentrate  on  being  a  shining  em- 
bodiment of  wisdom  and  compassion. 
When  the  system  worked,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  present  Dalai  Lama,  it 
worked  beautifully.  Tibet  between  the 
mid- 18th  century  and  1959  was  the  only 
society  on  earth  ruled  by  consecutive- 
ly reincarnated  saints.  The  reign  of 
the  Dalai  Lamas  was,  as  Robert  Thur- 
man put  it,  "like  having  successive 
reincarnations  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the 
White  House." 

But,  like  any  system,  this  one  was 
subject  to  abuse.  As  a  Tibetan  friend 
explained,  a  tulku  was  a  "business  class" 
rebirth.  It  came  with  significant  perks— 
a  monastery,  estates,  tenant  farmers, 
devoted  disciples.  All  too  often  the  lit- 
tle tulku  was  manipulated  for  materi- 
al ends,  by  his  parents,  by  the  abbot 
of  his  monastery,  by  the  entourage  of 
his  previous  incarnation,  by  his  regents 
(who  controlled  his  assets  until  he 
reached  his  majority).  The  last  three 
Panchen  Lamas  were  manipulated  for 
political  ends  by,  successively,  the 
Manchus,  the  Kuomintang,  and  the  Red 
Chinese,  who  tried  to  make  them  their 
puppets  and  to  create  a  schism  with 
the  Dalai  Lamas  in  typical  imperialis- 
tic divide-and-rule  fashion. 

In  fact,  the  lineages  of  both  the  Dalai 
and  Panchen  Lamas  are  rife  with  the 
sort  of  intrigue,  treachery,  and  polit- 
ical machination  you  would  expect 
from  the  Plantagenets,  say,  or  the 
Popes.  The  Sixth  Dalai,  for  instance, 
was  deposed  and  probably  murdered 
in  1706  by  the  Manchus,  who  in- 
stalled their  candidate  for  his  rein- 
carnation in  the  Potala,  the  Dalai 
Lama's  1,200 -room  palace  in  Lhasa. 
But  the  Tibetans  refused  to  accept  him. 
The  9th  through  12th  Dalai  Lamas 
all  died  before  reaching  their  25th  birth- 
days.  Sir  Charles  Bell,  the  British 


representative  in  Tibet  early  in  til 
century,  speculated  that  they  too  ma 
have  been  murdered. 

The  cloud  over  the  recognition  c 
the  reincarnation  of  the  Panchen  Lam 
is  hardly  unique;  there  are  currentl 
two  rivals  claiming  to  be  a  reincarm 
tion  of  the  Karmapa,  another  celebrate 
Tibetan  hierarch.  As  Tai  Situ  Rinpoche 
the  regent  who  sponsored  one  of  th) 
new  Karmapas,  said,  "We  are  used  t 
this."  Reincarnation,  Kelsang  Yeshi,  th: 
chairman  of  the  exiled  government' 
Cabinet,  reminded  me,  is  "nebulous  tei 
ritory."  And  when  you  delve  into  thes 
reincarnation  controversies,  John  Ack» 
erly,  the  director  of  the  Washington  ' 
based  International  Campaign  for  Tibet 
explained,  "you're  getting  into  thm 
murky  side  of  Tibet." 

"The  real  question  [about  the  curren 
Panchen  Lama  controversy]  is  whethe. 
the  Chinese  have  written  the  Dalai  Lam;t 
off,"  Frank  Wisner,  the  American  arm 
bassador  in  New  Delhi,  told  me,  "oo 
is  there  still  a  deal  to  be  made  liktc 
the  concordat  between  the  Pope  an<v 
Mussolini.  .  .  .  The  Chinese  feel  the;,; 
can't  be  wobbly  about  fractious  bits  ami 
pieces  of  the  empire  at  this  point,  ano 
they're  cutting  His  Holiness  no  slacks 
They  want  him  on  his  knees." 


The  morning  flight  to  Lhasa 
from  Chengdu,  in  Sichuaii 
(the  only  flights  into  Tibet 
in  winter  are  from  China) 
is  filled  half  with  Tibetann 
and  half  with  Han  Chineset 
smartly  dressed  in  leather  an(n 
fur— the  new  Communis- 
consumer  generation.  My  twc< 
companions  are  Jeffrey  Aarf 
onson,  41,  a  photographer! 
and  my  Tibetan  exile  friend  Sephenn 
who  is  to  chat  discreetly  with  his  comr 
patriots  and  find  out  what  is  going  onn 
As  we  wait  for  our  luggage  in  Lhasa'; 
large,  new,  modern  arrivals  building 
a  young  Han  woman  breaks  out  a 
cell  phone  and  is  soon  yakking  away* 
Half  a  dozen  other  passengers  are  do 
ing  the  same.  This  is  not  the  Tibet  1 
toured  five  years  ago,  but  in  the  day? 
that  follow  I  discover  that  the  modern 
nity  is  still  confined  largely  to  Lhasa 
and  its  environs.  Outside  the  capital, 
it  is  soon  dwarfed  by  the  epic  stark-1 
ness  of  the  Tibetan  plateau— barren 


incarnations  ot  Jesus  Christ  in  the  White  House." 


i  ijrown  hills  with  sharp  shadows,  tai- 
nt ered  prayer  flags  fluttering  on  their 
lummits.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  the 
n  pore  Buddhist  doctrine  of  shunyata— 
m  :mptiness— took  hold  in  this  vast,  de- 
em ;erted  land,  which  is  a  fifth  the  size 
in  j)f  China  yet  contains  only  4.6  mil- 
fat  ion  Tibetans. 

)di  i  We  have  a  Toyota  Land  Cruiser  with 
tl  i  state-approved  driver  and  tourist 
id  ijuide,  both  Tibetans,  at  our  disposal. 
i,j  we  are  being  careful  with  them,  lest 
sni  hey  report  our  interest  in  the  Panchen 
it  uama  to  the  Public  Security  Bureau 
he  P.S.B.)— the  secret  police.  Rabgyal,  our 
k  juide,  is  certainly  sending  out  the 
50  fight  signals.  "That  is  the  good  polit- 

I  pal  prison,  where  the  international 

II  |iuman  -rights  inspectors  are  taken," 
le  says  in  pretty  decent  English,  point- 
ing to  a  distant  installation  up  a  side 
i  galley.  He  himself,  he  tells  us,  spent 
an  10  years  in  prison  and  labor  camps, 
i  ind  is  deaf  in  one  ear  from  beatings 
i  le  received.  "He  is  declaring  him- 
H  ielf,"  Sephen  whispers,  "but  maybe  this 
a  js  to  lure  us  into  declaring  ourselves." 
[In  !  Lhasa  is  ethnically  and  architec- 
i  urally  divided  into  a  Han  and  Hui 
ai  Muslim  district  and  the  old  Tibetan 

listrict,  the  center  of  which  is  the 
(okhang,  the  oldest  (seventh  century) 
ind  most  sacred  temple  in  Tibet.  The 
otal  population  is  170,000.  Below  the 
*otala,  which  sits  majestically  on  a 
jnesa  west  of  the  city,  there  has  been 
in  extensive  modernization:  the  nar- 
ow  alleys,  traditional  Tibetan  two- 
tory  whitewashed  houses  with  inner 
:ourtyards,  and  teahouses  and  broth- 
els in  which  the  bohemian  Sixth  Dalai 
.ama  caroused  300  years  ago  have 
>een  razed;  in  their  place  is  a  big  new 
quare  called  Potala  Square,  with  the 
ame  campy  streetlights  that  grace 
"iananmen  Square  in  Beijing. 

As  we  walk  through  the  Han  quar- 
er,  we  pass  a  bikers'  bar,  two  shop- 
:eepers  squabbling,  a  corner  with 
>rostitutes.  Disco  and  drugs  have  ar- 
ived  in  Lhasa.  For  a  lost  generation 
>f  young  Lhasans,  stumbling  between 
:osmologies,  Japanese  karaoke  bars 
lave  become  the  new  temples,  Chi- 
lese  rap  from  Taiwan  the  new  mantras. 

The  scene  in  front  of  the  Jokhang 
s  unchanged,  however.  Fragrant  stacks 
)f  juniper  crackle  and  smoke  in  two 
arge  incense  shrines  as  dozens  of  pil- 


grims prostrate  before  the  huge  doors 
of  the  temple,  the  final  destination  of 
what  has  been  weeks,  months,  even 
years  on  the  road.  This  is  where  four 
bloody  riots  for  Tibetan  independence 
were  started  by  monks  and  nuns  in 
the  late  80s.  Now,  up  on  a  rooftop, 
where  five  years  ago  two  Chinese  sol- 
diers manned  a  mounted  high-caliber 
machine  gun,  only  a  discreet  video 
camera  is  trained  on  the  steady  flow 
of  red-cheeked,  wide-eyed  Tibetans- 
some  twirling  prayer  wheels  and  mut- 
tering mantras— who  trudge  clockwise 
around  the  temple.  This  circuit  is 
known  as  the  Barkhor,  and  it  is  Mec- 
ca and  Times  Square  rolled  into  one. 
Here  people  from  all  over  the  coun- 
try rub  shoulders  and  stop  to  haggle 
for  religious  articles,  clothing,  and 
unfamiliar  goods  of  modern  manu- 
facture in  booths  on  either  side.  Two 
nomads  in  sheepskins  with  daggers  at 
their  waists  and  wide,  stylish  fox-fur 
hats  pause  to  stare  at  me.  Three  teenage 
girls  in  long  black  robes  and  felt 
boots,  their  hair  encrusted  with  coral 
and  turquoise,  dance  around  me  in  a 
ring  and  shrink  back,  giggling  and 
shrieking,  when  I  point  my  camera  at 
them.  In  the  middle  of  the  path  a  group 
of  clean-cut  young  monks  are  sitting 
and  chanting,  swaying  back  and  forth 
as  one  of  them  beats  a  drum.  The 
crowd  eddies  around  them.  An  old 
monk  and  I  bow  and  bring  our  fore- 
heads together— a  polite  Lhasan  greet- 
ing. But  no  one  sticks  out  his  tongue 
at  me,  another  traditional  salutation; 
tongue-thrusting  seems  to  have  van- 
ished from  the  scene.  Its  original  in- 
tent was  supposedly  to  show  that  you 
were  a  Buddhist  and  not  a  Bon  prac- 
titioner. Bon  was  Tibet's  original  re- 
ligion, and  its  followers  were  said  to 
have  had  blue  tongues. 

Joining  the  pageant  of  devotion 
in  the  Barkhor  for  a  circuit  or  two, 
drifting  along  in  this  river  of  clear, 
warm,  friendly  humanity,  is  all  that  is 
necessary  to  be  converted  to  the  Ti- 
betan cause,  to  wonder  why  the  Chi- 
nese can't  be  just  a  little  bit  nice  to 
these  people.  As  Maura  Moynihan, 
New  York  senator  Pat  Moynihan's 
daughter  and  a  longtime  Tibetan  ac- 
tivist, observed  after  her  first  visit  to 
the  Barkhor,  in  1994,  "The  fight  for 
Tibet  is  not  about  political  rights  of 


a  single  occupied  country;  it  is  a 
fight  for  truth,  freedom,  the  defini- 
tion of  human  values,  the  soul  of  man." 

Several  street  songs  about  the 
Panchen  Lama  are  circu- 
lating in  the  Tibetan  quar- 
ter. "This  is  not  a  search 
for  an  incarnate  lama,"  one 
goes,  "It's  a  search  for  the 
incarnation  of  Mao  /  And 
Jiang  Zemin  [the  Chinese 
president]  has  found  it  / 
Look  at  the  mole  on  the 
kid's  cheek."  Another  goes: 
"What  times  are  we  going  through 
that  Communists  are  experts  in  find- 
ing reincarnations?" 

Sephen  discreetly  polls  circumam- 
bulators, hoping  to  avoid  the  under- 
cover agents  of  the  P.S.B.,  known  as 
"sniffing  dogs,"  who  are  dressed  as 
monks  and  pilgrims.  "We  don't  ac- 
cept this  one  [the  Chinese  Panchen 
boy,  Gyaltsen  Norbu],  but  we  have  to 
politically,"  one  man  says.  "Nobody 
is  believing  or  wanting  to  see  the 
new  one,"  says  another.  "The  other 
[Choekyi  Nyima,  the  Dalai  Lama's 
boy]  the  Chinese  may  kill.  They  do 
not  care  about  killing." 

In  the  stalls  devoted  to  selling  pho- 
tographs of  tulkus  and  other  holy 
men,  there  are  none  of  the  Dalai  Lama, 
of  course,  or  of  little  Choekyi  Nyi- 
ma. (Dalai  Lama  pictures,  which  we 
are  asked  for  at  every  turn,  are  hot 
contraband;  a  foreigner  caught  giving 
one  to  a  Tibetan  can  be  fined  a  thou- 
sand yuan— $120— and  instantly  ex- 
pelled.) There  is  a  picture  of  little 
Gyaltsen  Norbu,  sitting  on  some  pil- 
lows, but  no  one  is  buying  it. 

"You're  not  making  the  mistake  of 
thinking  that  this  is  the  real  Panchen 
Lama?"  a  man  beside  me  says  as  I 
study  the  snapshot.  There  are  also 
several  pictures  of  the  late  10th 
Panchen:  his  massive  bulk  upon  a  horse; 
enthroned  and  dripping  with  jewels; 
casting  water  in  blessing  with  a  jagged 
snow  peak  in  the  background.  The 
Chinese,  doing  typical  violence  to  the 
historical  record,  claim  him  as  their 
loyal  friend,  but  he  was  in  fact  a  com- 
plex, tragic  figure  and  one  of  the 
great  heroes  of  the  Tibetan  cause. 

In  1949,  when  the  Communists  took 
power  in  China,  the  reincarnation  of 

105 


die  Ninth  Panchen  Lama  had  not  yet 
been  chosen,  so  the  Nationalists,  in  an 
attempt  to  keep  their  foot  in  the  door, 
did  a  quick  "official  ceremony"  con- 
a  boy  named  Choekyi  Gy alt- 
sen  as  the  10th  just  before  they  left  for 
Taiwan.  They  wanted  to  take  the  boy 
with  them,  but  he  remained  and  was 
soon  embraced  by  Mao  Zedong.  After 
the  Red  Army  conquered  Tibet  in 
1950,  the  precocious  youth  was  supposed 
to  have  written  Mao  a  letter  thanking 
him  for  "liberating"  the  country.  ("The 
success  of  your  army  has  brought  joy 
to  the  whole  country,"  etc.  Even  more 
interesting  is  the  following  sentence: 
"During  the  past  20  years  and  more  I 
have  ceaselessly  struggled  for  the  ter- 
ritorial and  sovereign  integrity  of  Tibet." 
Recall  the  boy  was  only  12.  He  ap- 
pears to  have  been  using  a  royal,  in- 
clusive, multi-life  "I"  that  embraces  his 
previous  incarnation.) 

Tibetans  began  to  wonder  whether 
this  little  Panchen  was  the  real  thing. 
They  started  calling  him  Mao's  Boy. 
Many  wrote  him  off  as  a  collabora- 
tor. But  the  Dalai  Lama  assured  me 
he  was  the  true  incarnation. 


Being  three  years  the  Pan- 
chen's  senior,  the  young 
Dalai  Lama  took  a  special 
interest  in  his  development, 
and  they  became  close 
friends.  But  in  1959  there 
was  a  rebellion  in  Lhasa  and 
the  Dalai  Lama  fled  into  ex- 
ile. The  Communists  tried 
to  set  up  the  Panchen  as 
the  ruler  of  Tibet,  but  he 
told  them  the  Dalai  Lama  was  the 
true  ruler  and  could  never  be  re- 
placed. By  1961,  while  the  Panchen 
Lama  was  in  Lhasa,  preparing  his  cri- 
tique of  the  Chinese  occupation  of 
Tibet,  the  Chinese  had  instituted  "dem- 
ocratic reforms"  that  would  result  in 
the  death  of  1.2  million  Tibetans  and 
the  gutting  of  all  but  13  of  its  more 
than  6,000  monasteries  and  temples. 
As  John  Avedon  vividly  recounts  in 
his  book  In  Exile  from  the  Land 
of  Snows,  celibate  monks  and  nuns 
were  forced  to  copulate  in  public  and  to 
use  sacred  texts  as  toilet  paper.  The 
10th  Panchen  Lama  realized  the  utter 
contempt  the  mmists  had  for  his 

faith,  and  wh<  1 1  ■■"tec! on  page  139) 


i^niriJimiiiTOriin 


■ 


H 


K 


Monks  debate  religion  in  Lhasa 

The  population  remains  deeply  committee 

to  the  exiled  Dalai  I.ama.  As  a  result 

says  Frank  Wisner,  the  America! 

ambassador  in  New  Delhi,  the  Chinese 

"want  him  on  his  knees." 


lill      LAilJI  IUI  n 


1  m 

mni 


MlllllllillWIIIIHIIIlHllllIIIIIH 


Veruschka  vor 

Lehndorf,  New  York, 

1964.  Opposite,  top, 

Gertrude  Stein 

and  Horst  posing  for 

Carl  Erickson, 

Paris,  1946;  bottom, 

After  the  Party, 

Rome,  195L 


a 


- 


\ 


I 


ST!  LATITUDES 


ii  193G,  at  the  age  of  24, 
Horst  P.  Bohrmann  arrived 
in  Paris.  He  was  set  to 
study  architecture  with  Le 
Corbusier.  He  ended  up 
studying  photography  with 
George  Hoyningen-Huene. 
Bohrmann  learned  discipline 
from  the  difficult  Russian 
aristocrat,  but  his  eye  was 
already  his  own.  Within  five 
years,  "at  a  ridiculously 
early  age"  (fashion  writer 
Bettina  Ballard's  words),  he  inherit- 
ed his  mentor's  job  at  Vogue.  When 
he  became  a  U.S.  citizen  in  1943,  it 
was  simply  and  symmetrically  as  Horst 
P.  Horst. 

If  Cecil  Beaton's  photographs  are 
like  "being  inside  an  opal,"  as  Diana 
Vreeland  said,  Horst's  photographs 
conjure  up  a  world  of  white  gloves 
and  magic  wands.  From  the  start  he 
was  a  Harry  Houdini  with  light  sources, 
a  master  of  shadow.  His  dustless, 
mistless,  time-in-a-bottle  atmospheres 
are  almost  surgical  in  their  clarity, 
achieving  a  kind  of  sci-fi  sublimity 
(like  being  inside  an  incandescent  light- 
bulb).  Indeed,  Horst  frequently  verges 
on  Romanticism  in  the  key  of  Shel- 
ley—both Percy  and  Mary.  He  makes 
cool  Veruschka  a  Mont  Blanc  break- 
through; immovable  Gertrude  Stein, 
Vesuvius.  His  Waxed  Beauty  (1938), 
a  woman  enshrined  in  a  white  wax 
bath,  nods  to  The  Bride  of  Franken- 
stein (1935). 

Unlike  Avedon,  his  main  competi- 
tion in  the  40s,  Horst  wasn't  interest- 
ed in  the  irrepressible  action  shot.  He 
preferred  to  tell  a  story  slant,  touch- 
ing the  macabre  inside  manners  (he 
photographed  Wallis  Simpson  and 
Truman  Capote),  the  surrealism  of 
high  society  (he  photographed  Andy 
Warhol).  In  a  recent  exhibition  at  the 
International  Center  of  Photography 
in  New  York,  Horst  classics  hung  across 
the  hall  from  a  sprawling  collection 
by  Ansel  Adams,  naked  Nature  parad- 
ing its  purity.  It  was  hard  to  decide 
whether  Horst's  stylized,  plaster-of- 
is  whites  were  supernatural  or  sin- 
harder  still  to  look  away.  No 
offer  Adams,  but  Horst  gives  us 

Eve— tl  :n<       iuil  feel  of  tempta- 

tion, the  ur  of  the  hand  that  holds 

the  apple.  □ 

110 


K  M 


n    **m$ 


' 


l*'^^% 


Jeffrey  Wright  portrays 

the  wild,  self-destructive 

painter  Jean-Michel  Basquiat 

in  the  first  film  written  and 

directed  by  artist  Julian 

Schnabel,  opposite,  with  his 

daughter  Lola,  who  plays 

the  wife  of  Schnabel's  alter  ego 

(Gary  Oldman)  in  the  film. 


capturing  the 
mpestuous  career 
doomed  80s  prodigy 
an-Michel  Basquiat, 
lian  Schnabel 
ts  made  the  first-ever  iiwl 
iture  film  by  an         \W\wV 

\Yv\\  \V  VV  v    V   \\  v 

tist  about  an  artist.  ;^\w\\ 

)BCOLACELLO  ^|Xv 

ids  that  Basquiat  ^^^m 

fies  expectations,  !f^ 

tn  a  cast  j  ^ 

Schnabel  fflf'l  ^;' 

urns  including  ,j(tv 

try  Oldman, 
iristopher  Walken, 
>urtney  Love, 
illem  Dafoe, 


i\\\TO 


\\/ii  v 


*m 


iii  l  ii 


Basquiat's  1982  painting 
Self-Portrait  as  a  Heel,  Part  Two 
(acrylic  and  oil  paint  stick 
on  canvas,  96  in.  by  61  'A  in.) 
and,  clockwise  from  top  left, 
Benicio  Del  Toro  as  Basquiat's 
friend  Benin.  David  Bowie 
as  Andy  Warhol,  Chuck  Pfeifer 
as  a  new-money  art  collector, 
Michael  Wincott  as  art 
critic  Rene  Ricard,  Dennis  Hopper 
as  Swiss  art  dealer  Bruno 
Bischofberger,  Parker  Posey  as 
gallery  owner  Mary  Boone, 
and  Elina  Lowensohn  as  gallery 
owner  Annina  Nosei. 


ruffaut's  first  movie  was 
The  400  Blows.  Pasolini's 
I  was  Accattone!  Maybe  the 
fun  of  making  something 
for  the  first  time  and  hav- 
ing the  need  to  make  that 
thing ..."  Julian  Schnabel, 
he  of  the  broken -plate  paint- 
ings and  self-proclaimed 
comparisons  to  Pablo  Picasso  and 
Jackson  Pollock,  is  talking  about  his 
first  movie,  Basquiat,  which  is  based 
on  the  life  of  the  doomed  black  prodi- 
gy of  the  80s  New  York  art  world, 
and  which  Miramax  will  release  this 
month.  "I've  always  been  interested 
in  movies,"  Schnabel  says.  "77ie  Ten 
Commandments  blew  my  mind.  I've 
seen  The  Godfather  200  times."  The 
art  star  is  sitting  in  a  palazzo-size  sa- 
lon above  his  Greenwich  Village  stu- 
dio, surrounded  by  a  bear  skeleton 
standing  on  an  antique  Spanish  chest, 
a  Picabia  portrait  of  a  woman,  a  bed- 
spread that  once  belonged  to  Emper- 
or Maximilian  of  Mexico,  and  several 
of  his  own  gargantuan  works,  includ- 
ing a  1994  abstraction  titled  Last  At- 
tempt at  Attracting  Butterflies. 

Defying  most  expectations,  Julian 
Schnabel  has  made  a  small  miracle  of 
a  movie,  surprisingly  full  of  those 
qualities  for  which  he  is  least  known: 
humility,  maturity,  and  subtlety.  Fol- 
lowing in  the  footsteps  of  Jean  Cocteau 
and  Andy  Warhol,  he  has  pulled  off 
the  feat  that  eluded  his  artist-turned- 
filmmaker  contemporaries  David  Salle 
(Search  and  Destroy)  and  Robert  Lon- 
go  (Johnny  Mnemonic)  by  making  an 
artistic  film  that  is  neither  pre- 
cious nor  stilted.  He  has  also  avoid- 
ed going  Hollywood  (think:  Lust 
for  Life  and  The  Agony  and  the  Ec- 
stasy).   Nonetheless,    Basquiat, 
which  was  made  for  $3.3  million 
put    up    by    art    collectors    and 
newsprint  moguls  Peter  Brant  and 
Joseph   Allen    and    by    Schnabel 
himself,  definitely  has  commer- 
cial possibilities.  As  the  director 
of   the    first    widely    distributed 
feature    film    ever    made    about 
an  artist  by  another  artist,  Schna- 
bel has  opened  up  the  art  world 
to  outsiders  without  simplifying 
its  sophistication  or  sensationaliz- 
ing its  excesses.  "The  whole  point," 
says    Schnabel,    who    also    wrote 
the   script,    "was   not   to   have   a 
tourist  make  this  movie,  and  not 


115 


B] 


movie. 


y-yx* 


., 


Sfcs^^^yia.eW'*'**^^^ 


He  was  at 
his  highest 
when  he  was  ' 

painting. 


V 


v\ 


to  turn  everybody  into  stereotypes." 
"What's  so  lovely  is  that  this  film  helps 
belie  Julian's  reputation  as  a  monster," 
says  David  Bowie,  who  plays  Basquiat's 
idol  and  mentor,  Andy  Warhol.  "The 
guy  just  has  this  marvelous  swirling  ro- 
mantic sense  of  the  mysteries  and  jour- 
neys of  life,  which  perhaps  doesn't 
come  through  in  his  paintings,  because 
the  statements  he's  making  are  much 
more  oblique.  Julian  understands  how 
to  tell  a  story.  He  knows  how  to  em- 
pathize with  the  feelings  all  of  us  have." 

Bowie  worked  for  scale,  as 
did  a  slew  of  Schnabel's 
famous  friends,  including 
Gary  Oldman,  Christopher 
Walken,  Willem  Dafoe, 
Dennis  Hopper,  Parker 
Posey,  Tatum  O'Neal,  and 
Courtney  Love.  Well-known 
musicians  such  as  Tom 
Waits  and  John  Cale  also  reduced  their 
normal  fees  to  help  Schnabel  create  a 
driving  sound  track,  which  will  be  re- 
leased by  Island  Records.  At  the  heart 
of  the  movie  are  four  striking  perfor- 
\ mances  by  newer  talents:  Claire  For- 
lani,  as  the  girlfriend  Basquiat  dumps 
when  fame  comes  calling;  Benicio  Del 
Toro,  as  Basquiat's  best  buddy;  Mi- 
chael Wincott,  as  the  tortured  art  crit- 
ic Rene  Ricard;  and,  above  all,  Jeffrey 
Wright,  who  won  a  Tony  for  Angels 
in  America,  as  the  dazzling  but  self- 
destructive  Jean -Michel  Basquiat,  who 
had  his  first  one-man  show  in  New  York 
at  the  Annina  Nosei  Gallery  in  1982 
at  age  21  and  died  of  an  overdose  of 
cocaine  and  heroin  six  years  later. 

Schnabel  and  Wright  manage  to  show 
the  hitherto  unshowable:  the  pleasures 
and  horrors  of  being  on  drugs,  as  well 
as  what  it  is  that  artists  actually  do. 
The  scene  of  Basquiat  going  at  a  long 
canvas  on  the  floor  with  paintbrush, 
spray  can,  Magic  Marker,  and  roller  is 
riveting  in  its  matter-of-factness.  Schna- 
bel says,  "I  think  Jean -Michel  was  at 
his  highest  when  he  was  painting.  It 
was  his  way  of  breathing.  Every  time 
people  showed  up,  it  became  like  a 
car  accident.  But  I'm  not  saying  that 
artists  are  cool  and  everybody  else  in 
the  art  world  is  a  square.  Annina  No- 
sei may  be  a  little  nutty,  Mary  Boone's 
got  her  insanity  or  whatever,  but  they 
i really  love  art.  It's  almost  like  the  art 
was  another  character  in  the  movie.  And 
it  drove  everybody  crazy."  D 


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DESIGNS  FOR  LIVIN( 

At  87,  Hardy  Amies  preside 

over  the  last  couture  house  in  Londor 

his  collection  is  sold  i 

14  countries,  and  he  continues  t 

dress  the  Queen,  his  client  for  mor 

than  four  decades.  Opposite 

Amies  at  Lachasse,  1935.  Inset 

Second  Lieutenant  Amies  designin; 

his  wartime  collection,  1941 

This  page:  Amies  is  photographet 

at  Snowdon's  studio  ii 

London,  October  4, 1995 


fJ 


&->- 


I 


I 


Photograph  by  SNOWDON 


""^W     A     ir  Hardy  Amies  fix- 
es his  American  vis- 
itor with  an  impish 
■     look.  "What  are  you 
1      wearing?  Armani,   I 
suppose?" 

A  not-quite  Ar- 
mani, as  it  happens. 
A  knockoff. 

"Look  at  where 
the  bottom  coat  but- 
ton is,"  Amies  com- 
mands. 

His  visitor  looks 
down. 

"Genitalia  fasten- 
ing," crows  the  eld- 
er statesman  of  Brit- 
ish clothes-makers.  "You  can't  have  fas- 
tening buttons  below  the  waist." 

Just  over  50  years  ago,  Hardy  Amies 
moved  into  this  war-ruined  town  house 
at  14  Savile  Row  and  began  making 
clothes  by  the  rules  and  traditions  of 
the  tailors  on  the  street.  There,  with 
a  knighthood  to  honor  his  service  as 
couturier  to  the  Queen,  he  remains, 
his  mind  and  wit  undimmed  at  87. 
He  still  subjects  every  new  design  to 
coruscating  judgment.  His  sensibility 
still  informs  every  item  of  clothing 
that  bears  the  Amies  label.  And  he 
still  throws  brickbats  at  other  design- 
ers with  mischievous  glee. 

At  times,  Amies's  adherence  to  tra- 
dition has  put  him  so  at  odds  with 
other  designers  as  to  make  him  seem 
a  curio  from  a  case  in  the  British 
Museum.  Yet  proper  English  ladies 
of  the  upper  classes  have  come  year 
after  year  for  his  soigne  country  tweeds. 
And  if  his  women's  wear  has  remained 
an  increasingly  rarefied  luxury,  his 
men's  wear  has  been  taken  up  by  50 
licensees  in  14  countries,  generating 
$150  million  a  year  in  sales. 

Now  he's  lived  long  enough  to  see 
fashion  come  full  circle.  The  tightly 
shaped  suits  and  bright  formal  flous 
of  his  latest  collections  seem  taken  di- 
rectly from  his  first  show,  in  1946;  these 
are  clothes  Ingrid  Bergman  might 
have  worn  in  Casablanca.  Yet  with  their 
classic  lines  and  quietly  rich  fabrics, 
they're  brilliantly  contemporary. 

'"His  clothes  bespeak  a  specifically 
English  approach  to  dressing,  which  is 
also  aristocratic— to  be  wary  and  dis- 
trustful of  anything  that  smacks  of  vul- 
gar fashion."  observes  Hamish  Bowles, 
Vogue's  European  editor-at-large.  "If 

126 


an  evening  dress  has  a  jewel  neckline, 
it's  because  it's  intended  to  be  worn 
with  significant  jewels.  If  a  tweed  skirt 
is  fitted  a  certain  way,  it's  done  so  the 
wearer  can  walk  across  the  moors  or 
the  turf  at  Ascot,  not  because  it's  the 
season  for  that  style.  But  fashion  right 
now  is  interested  in  that  sensibility." 

"In  the  last  year,  it's  true  you've 
seen  those  adorable  little  dresses  and 
suits,"  says  The  New  York  Times's  Hol- 
ly Brubach.  "And  you  see  them  being 
done  by  people  who've  never  done  them 
and  don't  know  how  to  do  them  well. 
Yet  here's  Hardy  Amies,  who  knows 
how  fabric  should  be  cut  and  how  clothes 
should  fit,  who  knows  how  to  produce 
a  dress  that  flatters  a  woman.  ...  I  think 
of  his  clothes  as  being  incredibly  well 
bred.  They're  almost  the  fashion  equiv- 
alent of  that  clipped,  upper-class  En- 
glish accent.  Fashion  has  come  around 
to  exactly  that— anti-fashion— so  it's  a 
great  moment  for  him." 

Handsome  still,  with  aquiline  fea- 
tures and  a  full  head  of  hair.  Amies 
was,  earlier  in  life,  tall  and  dark  as  well, 
with  Cary  Grant-like  looks  in  which, 
to  judge  from  early  portraits,  he  took 
obvious  pride.  At  a  distance— in  a  pho- 
tograph, say,  by  his  friend  and  neigh- 
bor Lord  Snowdon— Amies,  in  a  hat 
and  gray  tweed  overcoat,  seems  a  pil- 
lar, a  caricature  almost,  of  English 
propriety.  This  he  is,  and  this  he's  not. 
Perfectly  mannered  hobnobber  with  the 
upper  orders  though  he  is,  he's  the 
first  to  acknowledge  his  indifferent  birth. 
"Not  bad,"  he  likes  to  say  of  his  suc- 
cess, "for  a  suburban  frock-maker." 

And  while  he  revels  in  the  snob- 
bery that  only  arrivistes  can  muster, 
he  knows  he's  a  bit  of  an  act,  a  one- 
man  drawing-room  comedy  produced 
with  a  spiritual  assist  from  Oscar  Wilde. 
"I'm  funny,"  he  says.  And  he  is. 

was  going  to  take  you  to  Buck's, 
my  club  across  the  street," 
Amies  explains.  "But  it's  fright- 
fully stuffy." 

Amies  uses  a  cane,  but  also 
keeps  a  powerful  grip  on  his 
visitor's  arm.  Bent  over  as  he 
is  now  by  a  bad  back,  he  retains  the 
large  frame  that  kept  him  competitive 
at  tennis  until  last  year.  His  young 
men's-wear  designer,  Ian  Garlant, 
appears  in  an  open  shirt  and  casual 
pants.  "How  scruffy  you  are  today, 
dear  boy!"  Amies  says.  "I  can't  imag- 


ine what  your  underwear  looks  like." 

Garlant,  after  nine  years,  is  still  the 
new  recruit.  Ken  Fleetwood,  Amies's 
design  director,  arrived  44  years  ago, 
the  licensee  chief  24,  the  finance  man 
51.  The  House  of  Amies  is  the  family 
of  Amies,  now  made  more  so  by  its 
founder's  decision  to  will  its  members 
the  business  as  a  trust.  Even  Amies's 
public-relations  man,  Peter  Hope  Lum- 
ley,  started  49  years  ago.  A  nervous, 
wheezing  fellow  in  a  crumpled  linen 
jacket,  he's  less  a  flack  than  a  foil  for 
his  boss's  gibes.  "He's  never  known  how 
to  dress,"  Amies  confides  as  Lumley 
pops  outside  to  alert  the  chauffeur. 

Once,  Amies  had  a  Rolls-Royce,  a 
1933  Sedanca  de  Ville.  After  two  years 
of  constant  maintenance,  he  gave  it 
up.  Now  he  has  a  Ford  Granada  Scor- 
pio Estate.  He  rides  in  the  front  pas- 
senger seat,  as  he  has  in  every  car 
he's  owned.  "That's  Buck's,"  Amies 
points  out.  "It  was  started  by  Captain 
Buckmaster  after  the  T4-T8  war  [as. 
he  refers  to  World  War  I]  for  mem-  • 
bers  of  the  household  cavalry  only, 
and  then  went  wider.  Still,  I  knew  damn 
well  when  I  came  here  50  years  ago 
to  my  shop  that  the  captain— he  was 
alive  then— would  never  have  had  a 
dressmaker  into  his  club.  Well,  the  years ! 
passed,  and  they  didn't  do  too  well, 
and  someone  came  and  begged  me  to 
join."  Amies  laughs  heartily.  "I  said, 
'We'll  have  to  make  him  a  pair  of[ 
kneepads.'  It  was  Anthony  Burney." 

"Anthony  Burney  was  a  shopkeep- 
er, after  all,"  Lumley  says. 

"No  he  wasn't." 

From  Savile  Row,  the  humble  Ford  i 
rolls  past  Wellington  Place  and  through 
Knightsbridge  to  1A  Launceston  Place, . 
a  stylish  local  restaurant.  Amies  often' 
goes  home  to  his  apartment  after  lunch  i 
to  take  a  nap.  In  this,  his  age  may  bee 
of  less  account  than  the  inevitable  Amies - 
cocktail,  a  straight-up  vodka  martini 
with  a  twist  of  orange.  "You'll  have^ 
one,  of  course,"  he  declares. 

"Two  and  you're  flat  on  your  face,"'' 
warns  Lumley. 

"You  should  have  the  foie  gras  tea 
rine,  and  then  the  lemon  sole,"  Amies 
instructs. 

His  visitor  requests  permission  to 
choose  an  alternative  appetizer. 

"Oh,  all  right,  I'll  take  the  same 
fucking  thing." 

A  waiter  approaches  with  bottled  wa- 
ter. Amies  waves  him  off.  "I  don't  want 


any  of  that,  thank  you,"  he  says.  "I 
had  a  bath  this  morning.'*  To  his  visi- 
tor he  says,  with  a  naughty  look,  "I 
saw  Bill  Blass  not  long  ago.  He's  got- 
ten very  fat,  hasn't  he?"  Blass  is  an 
old  friend  and  now  Amies's  American 
counterpart,  in  that  his  clothes  are 
handled  by  the  same  master  licensee. 
He's  also,  of  course,  a  rival.  "Recent- 
ly, I  read  he  gave  $10  million  to  the 
New  York  Public  Library,"  Amies  says. 
"Why?  Because  he  wants  to  suck  up 
to  Mrs.  Astor!"  (Blass  responds  to  the 
barb  later  by  phone:  "If  I'd  wanted  to 
curry  favor,  there  would  have  been 
cheaper  ways  to  do  it  than  that.  The 
fact  is  that  I've  been  on  the  board  of 
the  library  for  10  years.  That's  just  Hardy 
Amies  being  snide;  that's  his  style.") 

To  any  British  designer,  $10 
million  is  a  mind-bog- 
gling sum.  The  House 
of  Amies's  profits  are 
relatively  modest,  since 
most  of  its  income  is  gen- 
erated by  its  licensees, 
who  pass  along  a  mere  fraction.  Amies 
himself  lives  not  in  some  mansion  but 
in  a  two-bedroom  apartment  on  the 
I  ground  floor  of  a  row  house  in  Corn- 
wall Gardens.  "I  have  no  money!"  he 
I  declares,  though  this  is  not  quite  true. 
I  What  he  has  is  the  lifestyle  he  wants: 
)  the  apartment,  the  car,  his  clothes,  mon- 
ley  to  go  to  lunch,  and  six  servants. 

"Seven,  including  me,"  Lumley  mut- 
i  ters.  "And,  of  course,  the  house  in  the 
Cotswolds  is  very  nice." 

"Have  you  heard  of  David  Hicks?" 
;  Amies  asks  his  visitor.  His  visitor,  alas, 
has  not. 

"There  you  go,  so  it  doesn't  matter." 
"No,  it  does,"  Lumley  protests. 
"David  Hicks  is  Lord  Mountbatten's 
son-in-law."  He's  also  a  garden  designer 
and  writer  whose  coffee-table  book 
on  Cotswold  gardens  was  recently 
published  in  England.  Amies's  garden 
is  among  those  pictured.  The  Duke  of 
Marlborough,  the  Duke  of  Beaufort, 
and  Lord  and  Lady  Vestey  are  just  a 
few  of  the  other  distinguished  Cotswold 
cottage  tenders  whose  modest  horti- 
cultural efforts  are  featured. 

"He's  such  a  snob,"  Amies  whis- 
pers to  his  visitor  as  Lumley  ticks  off 
che  names. 

"I  don't  need  to  be  one,"  Lumley 
luffs.  Lumley  is  a  nephew  of  Captain 
idward  Molyneux. 


"You're  a  media  snob— you  like 
names." 

"Come  on,"  Lumley  says  heatedly, 
"who  drops  seven  dukes  in  a  single 
sitting?"  To  his  visitor  he  says  of  Amies, 
"He's  a  social  snob,  a  garden  snob, 
and  a  wine  snob.  It's  part  of  his  charm." 

"It  depends  what  you  mean  by 
snob,"  Amies  says.  "The  best  way  to 
put  it  is  that  I'm  an  elitist.  I  admire 
enormously  the  English  upper  classes. 
They  are  nice  people  who  look  after 
their  estates;  they  certainly  look  af- 
ter the  servants  on  their  es- 
tates. And  they  have  a  very 
civilized  way  of  living,  which 
they  would  willingly  share 
with  other  people." 

Like  many  outsiders  who 
have  risen  as  far  as  they  can 
in  England,  Amies  adores  the 
cold  calculus  of  class  even  as 
it  finds  him  lacking.  Successful 
and  talented  as  he  is,  worldly 
and  well  read  as  he  has  be- 
come, he  cannot  help  who  his 
parents  were  (father  was  a  gov- 
ernment land  surveyor;  mother 
worked  for  a  court  seamstress), 
or  where  he  went  to  school  (Brent- 
wood). Even  his  knighthood,  con- 
ferred   upon    him    on    his    80th 
birthday,  has  not  made  him  an 
aristocrat  to  a  wellborn  duke  or 
duchess.  Amies  knows  that;  he  ex- 
pects it.  He  also  expects  not  to  be 
stigmatized  in  any  way  for  his  sta- 
tion. "If  anybody  makes  me  feel  un- 
comfortable because  I  wasn't  born 
in  the  upper  class,"  he  says,  "or  that 
I  wasn't  mad  about  women— let's  not 
go  into  that— they  would  lose  out, 
and  not  me." 

Knighthood  is,  however,  as  close 
as  one  can  get  to  erasing  the  stigma 
of  class,  and  Sir  Hardy's  is  rather  a 
high  one:  Knight  Commander  of  the 
Royal  Victorian  Order.  Queen  Victo- 
ria established  the  order  in  1896  to 
honor  citizens  of  venerable  service  to 
her.  Though  below  the  Orders  of  Bath, 
St.  Michael,  and  St.  George,  it's  above 
the  political  knighthoods  granted  by 
the  prime  minister,  as  well  as  those 
bestowed  among  the  arts. 

"Now,  I  have  friends  who  have 
genuine  titles  in  the  sense  that  they 
genuinely  inherited  them,"  Amies  says 
modestly.  "One  girlfriend  is  the  de- 
scendant of  an  earl.  She  said  you 
speak  it— your  title— as  little  as  you  can. 


BLITHE  SPIRITS 

Above:  "the  New  Mayfair  Edwardians"- 
Peter  Coats,  William  Aykroyd,  and 

Mark  Gilbey  outside  14  Savile  Row,  1950. 

Top:  14  Savile  Row,  headquarters  of 

Hardy  Amies  Ltd.,  as  it  looks  today. 


"Fashion  has 
come  around  to 

anti-fashion — 

so  its  a  great 

moment  for  him. 


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outrageous  things  and  then  whisper,  'Darlirn 


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A  LfON 

AMONG  LADIES 
Opposite:  Amies's  first 
British  Vogue  cover, 
March  1949.  This  page: 
the  New  Look,  1949. 
Models  wearing  an 
Amies  coat  (left)  and 
a  Molyneux  coat 
inside  the  portico  of  the 
National  Gallery. 
Inset:  an  Amies  design 
on  a  Vogue  cover, 
March  1950. 


I  said.  'I've  always  thought  so.'  She 
said  you  never  ring  up  and  say,  'I  am 
Sir  Hardy  Amies.'  Except  perhaps  at 
a  restaurant,  where  it's  terrible  fun." 


1~"^  he  service  for  which  Hardy 
]  became  Sir  Hardy  began, 
he  cheerfully  recalls  as 
cocktails  are  followed  by 
a  bottle  of  New  Zealand 
sauvignon  blanc,  on  July  2, 
_  1951.  Well  established  by 
then  on  Savile  Row,  Amies  counted 
among  his  customers  a  lady-in-waiting 
to  Princess  Elizabeth.  So  taken  was 
Elizabeth  with  her  friend's  smart  clothes 
that  she  arranged  to  pay  a  visit  to  14 
Savile  Row,  where  Amies,  in  his  private 
office,  showed  her  his  latest  collection. 
The  princess  who  came  to  the  shop 
that  day,  and  whom  Amies  attended 
soon  after  at  Clarence  House  with 
sketches  adapting  his  designs  to  her,  was 
a  young  woman  of  generous  bosom 
and  slim  waist  who  knew  what  she  want- 
ed: bright  clothes  to  cheer  a  postwar 
nation  still  garbed  in  austerity  black. 
Clothes  with  a  "princess  line"  that  ran 
from  shoulder  to  hem  without  a  waist 
seam  to  draw  attention  to  her  female 
shape.  Clothes,  above  all,  that  wouldn't 
crease  during  a  long  day  of  public  ap- 
pearances. "She  dresses  for  her  audi- 
ence," Amies  declares  reverently.  "That 
is  the  secret  of  good  dressing." 

Amies  has  long  since  steeled  himself 
to  public  snickers  about  the  Queen's 
attire,  though  he  still  feels  the  press  is 
unfair.  Designer  Arnold  Scaasi,  who  has 
dressed  three  First  Ladies,  agrees.  "It's 
very  difficult  dressing  the  head  of  state," 
he  says.  "There  are  certain  limitations 
on  what  they  can  and  can't  wear.  I 
think  he's  done  a  wonderful  job." 

"We  know  the  Queen 


I  came  back 
an  ardent 

Nazi! 


was  ver 


ry 


— .  '"■ 


hz**, 


/J 


FIT  FOR  A  QUEEN 
Amies  and  key 
staff  members  leave 
I    14  Savile  Row  for 
a  fitting  at  Buckingham 
Palace  with  the  Queen, 
1954.  Inset:  Amics's 
friend  Neil  "Bunny" 
Roger,  1954. 


w 


I 


v^ 


\ 


The  Queen  doesrit  always  photograph  well  and  we're 


c 


doesn't  always  photograph  well,  and 
we're  distressed  about  that,"  Amies  says. 
"[But]  everyone  who  has  been  present 
[when  she  appeared]  thought  she  looked 
lovely."  One  critic,  though,  has  gotten 
under  his  skin.  "There's  a  man  in  New 
York  named  John  Fairchild,"  he  says 
of  the  powerful  publisher  of  W  and 
Women's  Wear  Daily.  Amies's  quarrel 
with  him  goes  back  to  the  late  1960s, 
when  the  House  of  Amies  designed  a 
uniform  for  British  Airways  flight  at- 
tendants that  met  with  disapproval. 
Not  surprising,  Fairchild  reported,  giv- 
en that  Amies  designed  dresses  for 
that  "dowdy  Queen."  Amies  rebuked  him 
for  his  rudeness  to  his  sovereign  in  a 
frosty  note,  and  there  until  recently  the 
matter  lay,  since  Fairchild,  notorious  for 
banishing  designers  from  his  pages, 
could  do  no  harm  to  a  British  design- 
er whose  customers  never  saw  the  Amer- 
ican fashion  press,  much  less  heeded  it. 

Over  time,  Amies's  licensing  chief, 
Roger  Whiteman,  befriended  Fairchild's 
wife,  Jill.  Mightn't  the  hatchet  be  buried? 
he  asked  Amies.  Fine,  Amies  agreed. 
He  invited  the  Fairchilds  for  drinks  at 
his  apartment,  then  took  them,  along 
with  Whiteman,  out  to  dinner.  All 
went  well  until  Fairchild  started  in  again 
about  the  Queen.  "I  said  what  I'd  said 
before,"  Amies  recalls,  "that  she's  not 
a  fashion  plate;  all  she  asks  is  to  be 
dressed  for  the  occasion.  He  said,  'What 
does  she  look  for  in  clothes?'  "Friend- 
ly, chic  clothes,'  I  said.  So  he  went 
back  and  wrote  a  whole  page  in  W 
against  me  about  'friendly,  chic'  clothes." 
Most  wounding,  Fairchild  wrote  that 
in  Amies's  apartment  before  dinner  he 
had  been  given  a  whiskey  without  ice. 
Amies  was  outraged.  "The  first  thing 
I  do  to  fix  a  drink  is  put  some  ice  in 
a  glass,"  he  says.  "But  anyway,  what 
a  rude  thing  to  say  about  someone  who's 
invited  you  to  his  house!" 

Fairchild's  piece  is  actually  rather 
lighthearted  and  fun.  About  Amies, 
its  author  is  bemused.  "Sir  Hardy's  a 
very  fine  gentleman  but  he's  been  liv- 
ing off  the  reputation  of  dressing  the 
Queen  for  years,  and  talking  about 
it— never  off  the  record,"  Fairchild  says. 
"Yet  when  others  write  what  he's  said, 
he  objects.''  Still,  it  annoys  the  pub- 
lisher that  Amies  failed  to  voice  his 
displeasure  directly.  "He  could  have 
called  me,"  Fairchild  observes.  "Instead 

132 


he  did  it  the  snide  way,  through  you." 

About  Amies's  place  in  English 
fashion,  Fairchild  is  blunt.  "He  knew 
how  to  make  a  great  suit,  and  that  sporty, 
quite  English  look  which  has  some- 
times bordered  on  the  dowdy.  But  to 
put  him  up  there  in  the  league  with 
any  of  the  great  designers— Armani, 
Saint  Laurent— is  ridiculous."  Even 
among  English  designers,  Fairchild 
suggests,  Sir  Hardy  ranks  low.  "He 
certainly  wasn't  a  creative  designer 
like  John  Cavanagh,  or  Vivienne  West- 
wood,  or  Jean  Muir." 

The  late  Muir,  as  it  happens,  comes 
up  in  conversation  over  coffee.  "I 
loved  her,"  Lumley  declares.  "I  loved 
having  her  in  the  house." 

"My  God,  what  a  beast,"  Amies  says. 

"Oh  please,  no,  don't,"  Lumley  re- 
monstrates. 

"Well,  apart  from  that  irritating 
verbal  tic  she  had  ..." 

"She  loved  you,"  Lumley  says. 

"We  met  up  once  in  Germany  and 
it  was  a  disaster.  We  shared  a  car 
with  her.  She  had  one  of  the  most 
dreadful  verbal  tics:  she'd  finish  every 
sentence  with  a  sort  of  hmm?" 

"I  admired  her,"  Lumley  says  fiercely. 

"Roy  Strong  said,  'Isn't  it  awful 
about  Jean  Muir?'  I  said,  'What's  aw- 
ful? She  died.  That  was  the  best  thing 
that  could  happen.  The  only  thing  worse 
than  a  male  bore  is  a  female  bore, 
and  she  was  a  female  bore.'" 

Women  designers  generally  earn 
Amies's  sharpest  gibes.  They've  never 
designed  clothes  as  well  as  men,  he 
feels;  they  never  will.  This  is  because 
women  make  clothes  for  themselves, 
whereas  men  can  be  objective.  The  great 
exception,  of  course,  was  Chanel.  "She 
had  a  man's  mind,"  Amies  explains. 
"She  was  a  toughie— she  knew  exactly 
what  was  going  on.  She  was  absolute- 
ly of  the  period.  And  everything  she 
did  was  based  on  a  man's  coat." 

A  mies  bridles  when  the 

A  word    "misogyny"    is 

/^k  mentioned,  and  quite 

/    ^k  rightly:  his  own  feel- 

Z__^k         ings  toward   women. 

/  ^k       after  a  lifetime  of  cloth- 

I—        J^ —  ing  them,  are  far  more 

complex,  a  mix  of  adoration  and  scorn 
based  to  some  extent  on  how  they  fit 
into  his  clothes  and  how  many  of  them 


they  buy,  as  well  as  on  whether  they're 
working  women  (bad;  clothes  designers, 
worse;  Margaret  Thatcher,  worst)  or 
pampered  aristocrats  (good;  titled  ones, 
better;  Queen,  best).  One  of  his  closest 
friends  is  Ann  Boyd,  who  started  just 
out  of  art  school  in  Amies's  workshop 
as  an  assistant  to  the  Queen's  vendeuse 
and  now  runs  the  design  firm  Reed 
Boyd.  "He  really  understands  wom- 
en's bodies,"  Boyd  observes.  "He  would 
never  embarrass  a  woman;  he  would 
never  want  her  to  go  out  looking  less 
than  her  best."  His  put-downs,  she  says 
fondly,  are  part  of  his  act  of  being  "a 
terrible  old  man.  We'll  go  to  parties, 
and  he'll  say  outrageous  things,  and  as 
we're  leaving  he'll  whisper  to  me,  'Dar- 
ling, do  you  think  I  got  them  going?' " 

His  homosexuality  he  doesn't  deny; 
indeed,  Amies's  early  openness  showed 
moral  courage,  even  if,  as  one  British 
journalist  observed,  a  gay  dressmaker 
in  mid-century  England  serving  royals > 
was  shielded  from  prejudice.  But  being 
gay  was  never  something  one  discussed  I; 
in  proper  society.  Amies  lived  quietly 
with  one  man  for  22  years,  but  when 
he  went  out  socially,  the  lover  stayed 
home.  "If  someone  rings  you  up  and 
says,  'Can  you  come  to  dinner?' "  Amies-: 
told  The  Guardian  in  1994,  "the  worst! j 
thing  you  can  do  is  say,  'Can  I  bring 
my  friend?'  It  is  just  too  common  fori] 
two  men  to  go  around  together." 

Outside,  a  handsome  young  man  inri 
blue  jeans  and  a  work  shirt  walks  by.J 
Amies  puts  his  coffee  cup  down  and* 
gazes  at  him,  mesmerized.  Every  elit-i< 
ist,  he  likes  to  say,  has  his  day  off.  Cer-r 
tainly  the  designer,  his  visitor  observes,*! 
has  not  lost  his  eye  for  youth  and 
beauty.  He  issues  a  lascivious  grin.  "That, 
never  goes  away,  does  it?" 

After  lunch,  Amies  retires  as  sched- 
uled while  his  visitor  returns  to  14  Sav-*i 
ile    Row,    where    the    second-floor  | 
showroom  is  fast  filling  with  ladies  i 
eager  to  view  his  latest  collection.  Kern  I 
Fleetwood,  a  languid,  gray-haired  man  [ 
in  his  60s  whom  Amies  calls  "the  boy,"  a 
hovers  by  the  door,  greeting  late  arrivals.'!* 
"Welcome,"  he  whispers,  "to  the  par-  i 
rot  house."  For  all  of  London's  youngei  > 
designers— John  Anderson  (who  start-  \ 
ed  with  Amies),  Catherine  Walker,  Bruce 
Oldfield,  Amanda  Wakeley— this  is  the 
last  couture   showroom,   and,   since 
the  closing  of  Hartnell's  four  yean  H 


med  about  that. 


ago,  the  last  real  English  couture  house. 

Most  of  the  100  women  at  the  show 
are  English;  most  are  "of  a  certain  age," 
as  Fairchild  puts  it.  But  here,  too,  are 
a  few  pairs  of  demure  young  wives. 
None  of  Amies's  regular  customers 
like  being  singled  out,  but  the  grape- 
vine suggests  that  Raine  de  Chambrun, 
Princess  Di's  former  stepmother,  is 
one,  Lady  Faringdon  another,  and 
that,  of  the  younger  royals.  Princess 
Alexandra  and  the  Duchess  of  Glouces- 
ter have  been  known  to  buy  a  suit  or 
two.  As  the  music  begins  and  the 
buzzing  subsides,  it's  easy  to  see  why. 
The  brilliantly  tailored  suits,  in  rich 
earth-tone  tweeds,  seem  to  have  been 
poured  onto  the  models  who  wear  them. 
Amidst  them,  the  occasional  silk  and 
satin  evening  gowns  punctuate  the  show 
with  bold  solid  colors:  pistachio  green, 
lemon  yellow,  tomato  red.  They  strike 
a  timely  blow  against  black,  and  make 
vibrantly  clear  that  their  guiding  spirit, 
napping  as  he  may  be  at  the  moment, 
is  still  happily  alert. 

It  is  true,  however,  that  more  and 
more  Sir  Hardy's  life  is  lived  not 
here,  nor  at  his  apartment,  but  in  his 
quite  marvelous  Cotswolds  compound, 
to  which,  being  a  sociable  fellow,  he 
tends  to  invite  guests. 


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romptly  at  10  o'clock  Fri- 
day morning  the  chauf- 
feur draws  up  to  the 
Cornwall  Gardens  apart- 
ment, and  Sir  Hardy  ap- 
pears at  his  door.  Behind 
him  is  a  living  room  dark 
in  morning  light,  with  an  ancient 
oak  sideboard,  a  comfortable  sofa, 
and  a  wall  of  books.  Cozy,  but  mod- 
est. Sir  Hardy  whispers  to  a  visitor, 
out  of  the  chauffeur's  earshot,  "I 
wanted  it  to  look  like  a  queer  don's." 
Sir  Hardy  was  born  on  Elgin  Av- 
enue in  Maida  Vale.  Yet  he  has  little 
to  say  about  the  neighborhood  as  we 
pass  through  on  our  way  out  of  Lon- 
don. His  fondest  first  memories,  Amies 
says  as  London  recedes,  are  of  the 
vicarage  on  the  Rhine  where  he  lived 
with  a  high-bourgeois  family  in  the 
ate  1920s  and  learned  German.  Not 
yet  21,  he  also  spent  formative  time 
n  Berlin  nightclubs  and  came  to  share 
lis  host  family's  excitement  about 
Hitler.  "Oh,  I  came  back  an  ardent 


K? 


-    •, 


THE  AGE  OF  ELIZABETH 

Top:  Amies,  Victor  Stiebel,  Norman  Hartnell, 
Yves  Saint  Laurent,  Diane  de  Warzee  d'Hermalle,  Lady 
Pamela  Berry,  Jean  Chauvel  (standing),  and  Cecil  Beaton, 
1958.  Second  row:  the  Queen  wears  Hardy  Amies 
creations.  Third  row:  Amies  flanked  by  the  Queen  and 
Princess  Margaret,  1953;  the  Queen  wears  an  Amies  design 
Fourth  row:  two  more  Amies  outfits;  an  Amies 
royal  ensemble  in  pink.  Left:  a  book  with  samples 
of  material  used  by  Amies  for  the  Queen. 


Nazi!"  Sir  Hardy  exclaims.  "It  was  very 
silly -I  quickly  changed.  But  it  didn't 
appear  to  do  with  anti-Semitism,  and 
!  was  so  busy  learning  about  life  that 
I  wasn't  very  interested  in  politics." 

His  mother's  work  had  always  in- 
terested him,  and  though  he  never 
did  learn  how  to  sew,  instinctively 
Amies  understood  fabric  and  color. 
By  late  1933  he  was  proficient  enough 
to  be  asked  to  manage  Lachasse,  one 
of  London's  most  successful  new  dress- 
makers. On  the  racks  of  the  shop's 
back  closets  he  found  ladies'  suits 
("called  suits  by  the  common  people; 
the  gentry  called  them  coats  and 
skirts")  designed  by  the  talented  man- 
ager who  had  just  stormed  off,  Dig- 
by  Morton.  So  fresh  and  strong  were 
Morton's  ideas  that  Amies  was  pro- 
foundly influenced,  and  has,  in  a  sense, 
applied  them  ever  since,  with  grate- 
ful acknowledgment. 

"His  secret,"  Sir  Hardy  says  of 
Morton,  "was  that  he  took  all  the 
necessary  features  of  the  man's  coat- 
narrow  sleeve,  high  arms— then  soft- 
ened it  by  using  soft  tweeds  and 
avoiding  all  mannish  regressive  detail. 
I  don't  think  he  knew  enough  about 
the  suit  to  be  so  fussed  about  the 
waist  buttons  as  I  am,  but  ...  he  was 
a  very  important  person  in  propounding 
what  I  called  the  English  look." 

Sir  Hardy's  women's  wear  has  been 
defined  by  the  look  for  50  years,  so  much 
so  that  he  stirred  far  more  attention 
by  bringing  it  to  men's  wear  in  the 
early  1960s.  While  the  rest  of  Savile  Row 
adhered  to  three-button  coats.  Sir  Hardy 
blithely  pushed  the  look  to  four  but- 
tons; having  won  that  campaign,  he's 
come  out  for  five  buttons,  which  ap- 
palls his  Row  neighbors  but  has  designer 
Paul  Smith  following  suit.  Not  many 
grown-ups  can  be  observed  yet  wear- 
ing Sir  Hardy's  four-button  coats  with 
gillie  collars,  but  his  alma  mater,  Brent- 
wood, has  just  provided  him  with  a 
school  full  of  young,  somewhat  reluc- 
tant customers,  whose  uniform  Sir  Hardy 
has  redesigned,  in  charcoal  gray,  to  sport 
four  buttons.  "My  mum  says  that  the 
four  buttons  are  a  bit  weird,"  observes 
one  fourth-former. 

The  first  uniform  Amies  designed 
'lily  his  own,  in  the  Second 
Worl  His  German,  along  with 

good  French,  had  landed  him  in  the 
nascent  inti  Uigence  corps,  for  which 
no  uniform  had  yet  been  designed. 

134 


Amies's  was  based  on  the  guards' 
uniform,  "which  I  think  is  the  smartest 
of  the  uniforms,"  he  recalls.  "It's  still 
khaki,  but  it's  rather  more  lovat  green 
than  yellow.  So  I  had  my  suit  made 
in  guards'  green."  Amies  wore  it  as 
his  formal  uniform  throughout  the 
war,  not  only  in  England  but  in  Brus- 
sels, where  he  helped  send  Resistance 
parachutists  behind  enemy  lines. 

Amies  admits  to  having  had  a  "soft 
war"  while  the  parachutists  whose 
jumps  he  coordinated  fell  so  often 
into  enemy  hands.  As  the  suburbs 
give  way  to  undulating  fields  and 
stone  cottages,  he  talks  admiringly  of 
his  friend  Bunny  Roger,  who  dis- 
played great  courage  at  Anzio.  A  British 
dandy,  Roger  designed  extravagant 
clothes  lined  in  fur  and  ran  a  show- 
room of  his  own  within  Amies's  shop 
in  the  early  70s.  He  is  still  a  brave 
fellow,  Amies  adds.  "A  couple  of 
years  ago  I  was  at  a  party  in  Chelsea 
on  Guy  Fawkes  Day,  when  we  have 
fireworks.  Up  went  a  rocket,  and 
down— into  a  tin  of  other  fireworks. 
Everyone  else— a  bunch  of  queens— all 
went  screaming  indoors  and  hid  behind 
the  sofa.  Bunny  walked  straight  over 
and  picked  up  the  rocket  and  threw 
it  off  so  it  would  explode  in  the  air." 

Yet  the  war  made  Amies  a  lieu- 
tenant colonel,  and  its  wreckage  enabled 
him  to  take  over  the  damaged  and 
abandoned  Savile  Row  town  house 
where,  with  £10,000  scraped  up  from 
family  and  friends,  he  began  his  busi- 
ness. Almost  immediately,  he  became 
one  of  the  Big  10,  a  postwar  consor- 
tium of  London's  best  clothes-makers, 
which  included  Edward  Molyneux,  Nor- 
man Hartnell,  Victor  Stiebel,  Ronald 
Paterson,  and  Digby  Morton.  Today, 
he's  the  only  one  left. 

mies's  village  of  Lang- 
ford  lies  just  within 
Oxfordshire,  where  the 
countryside  begins  to 
look  like  country  and 
the  farms  like  farms, 
despite  the  omnipresent 
crisscrossing  utility  lines.  Since  its 
founding  in  Anglo-Saxon  times,  the 
village  has  kept  a  population  of  about 
300;  its  center  is  a  narrow,  winding 
lane  bordered  by  houses  of  Cotswold 
stone.  Some  25  years  ago,  Amies  bought 
an  1840  schoolhouse  here.  Now  he  has 
also  converted  a  stone  barn  into  a 


guesthouse  in  another  part  of  the  vil- 
lage; behind  it  is  the  tennis  court, 
which  he  can  no  longer  use. 

"Would  you  not  like  a  short  drink?" 
Sir  Hardy  inquires  as  he  shows  a  vis- 
itor around  the  barn.  At  not  quite 
noon  he  makes  a  Bloody  Mary  for 
himself-"lots  of  ice,  you  see"— and  leads 
a  tour.  The  double-height  living  room 
has  a  portrait  over  the  fireplace  that 
looks  like  a  proper  English  ancestor— 
"I  have  no  idea  whose"— and  a  wall  lined 
with  bound  volumes  of  Punch  going 
back  to  1841,  and  Country  Life.  Lining 
the  tennis  court  outside  are  fine  Vic- 
torian roses,  leading  to  more  roses  in 
a  small  formal  garden.  At  the  garden's 
far  end,  Sir  Hardy  points  out  a  house 
in  the  distance,  on  the  far  bank  of  the 
Thames.  There,  he  explains,  lives  Lord 
Faringdon,  the  merchant  banker  whose 
wife  is  a  customer,  and  who  has  agreed 
to  become  chairman  of  the  trust.  "And 
I'm  going  to  become  president,  which 
means  fuck -all,"  Sir  Hardy  says,  though 
for  a  moment  his  bonhomie  slips  a  bit. 
It  is  a  step  toward  retirement,  he  ad- 
mits. "But  not  completely." 

Across  the  lane  in  the  main  house, 
Sir  Hardy  talks  of  his  passion  for 
needlepoint— the  quite  beautiful  chair 
seats  and  a  long  upholstered  footstool 
attest  to  his  skills— and  for  the  larger 
garden  of  roses,  clematis,  dianthus, 
and  lavender  that  bloom  where  a  school- 
yard once  lay.  His  sister,  Rosemary, 
herself  an  active  gardener  at  80,  ap- 
pears for  lunch.  Afterward,  over  a  plate 
of  Stilton— "You  don't  know  the  prop- 
er way  to  cut  it,  do  you?  Here,  let 
me"— Sir  Hardy  is  asked  one  of  those; 
questions  that  people  ask  of  octoge- 
narians: whether  the  world  is  better  i 
or  worse  since  he  began. 

"Oh,  I  couldn't  possibly  say,"  he< 
says.  "I  suppose  it's  rather  awful.  But 
I  have  to  say  to  myself  that  I'm  very 
lucky  to  be  where  I  am  even  if  it  is 
awful  now.  To  have  not  been  lucky  in 
the  days  when  it  was  very  grand,  I 
would  have  been  nobody.  I  wouldn't 
have  been  unhappy  because  I  wouldn't 
have  known  I  was  nobody.  Nobody's 
ever  known  that  they're  nobody. 

"I've  thought  of  my  epitaph,"  he  adds 
in  the  garden.  "Would  you  like  to* 
hear  it?  'He  was  a  court  dressmaker, 
and  an  elitist  with  a  sense  of  humor.'" 

A  large  stone,  it's  observed,  will  be' 
needed  for  that. 

"Yes,"  he  says.  "Quite."  □ 


McConaughey 

'Continued  from  page  79)  period  right 
now.  It's  important,  though,  never  to 
grow  too  long  for  your  cot.  Look  on 
everything  with  a  little  bit  of  ignorance 
and  innocence.  I  just  try  to  do  the  work 
on  a  daily  basis  and  try  to  hit  it  pure,"  he 
says,  alluding  to  his  great  love  of  golf  as 
the  perfect  metaphor  for  what  he  is  now 
facing.  (A  4  handicap  when  he  bravely 
chose  the  sport  over  Texas  high-school 
football,  he  now  carries  an  1 1.)  "Wherever 
the  ball  lies,  you've  got  to  hit  it,"  he  in- 
sists. "You've  got  to  create  your  shot.  .  .  . 
There's  a  feeling  you  can  get  when  you 
hit  the  ball  on  the  screws  and  you  don't 
even  feel  it  on  the  club.  It's  so  pure.  It's 
about  precision.  It's  about  'the  gut.  It's 
about  the  head.  It's  very  internal— but  at 
the  same  time  you  can  get  aggressive" 

4Qo  y'doin'  a  story  on  the  little  man?" 
O  asks  Michael,  McConaughey's  brother, 
who's  known  as  Rooster,  when  he  calls 
me  from  his  truck  in  Texas.  "If  he  don't 
do  somethin'  stupid,  he  might  be  a  big 
movie  star.  Hell,  he  went  t'Peru  a  while 
back,  and  I'uz  afraid  he  wuz  gonna  git 
stung  by  a  bee  and  his  head'd  swell  up." 

"His  head  might  swell  up  for  other 
reasons  now,"  I  tell  him. 

"I'll  straighten  that  sonuvabitch  out— it 
won't  stay  swole  f'long.  Naw  .  .  .  he's  a 
pretty  focused  little  ol'  guy.  If  my  dad'uz 
still  alive,  he'd  be  the  sonuvabitch  you'd 
need  t'talk  to— he'uz  a  ham  hisself." 

Jim  McConaughey,  who  died  while  his 
son  was  filming  Dazed  and  Confused, 
played  defensive  end  for  the  Green  Bay 
Packers  before  returning  to  Texas,  where 
he  sold  pipe  and  couplings  in  the  oil  busi- 
ness, a  job  inherited  by  Rooster  and  an- 
other brother,  Pat,  who  is  seven  years  old- 
er than  Matthew.  When  Kay  McCon- 
aughey, a  kindergarten  teacher,  gave  birth 
to  Matthew,  she  was  39  years  old.  "She 
thought  I  was  a  tumor  for  the  first  five 
months,"  says  McConaughey. 

"There  was  nothing  about  this  child 
that  would  have  made  me  think  he'd  get 
into  acting,"  says  K-Mac  (the  nickname 
his  mother  goes  by).  "He's  so  honest 
about  who  he  is  that  to  go  out  of  himself 
and  be  somebody  else  amazes  me.  He 
does  it  so  well,  but  that's  because  it's  a 
job.  He's  goal-oriented  like  Jim.  .  .  .  But 
when  he  gets  those  eyes!  He  can  get  a 
look  in  his  eyes  that's  just  horrible.  When 
he  goes  into  himself,  you  can't  reach  him. 
I  pity  the  poor  woman  who  ever  gets 
him.  Those  eyes  are  piercing." 

"Mom  always  cooked  a  big  breakfast," 

136 


McConaughey  remembers.  "If  you  woke 
up  in  the  morning  and  you  were  in  a 
grumpy  mood,  she'd  come  up  right  next 
to  you  and  go,  pow,  hit  you  right  upside 
the  head,  and  go,  'Walk  back  down  that 
hallway  and  start  over!'  You'd  have  to 
physically  get  up  and  go  back  to  your 
room  and  start  over.  She'd  say,  'You're 
sittin'  there  and  you're  seein'  the  dust  on 
the  table  and  not  the  rose  in  the  vase!'" 

And  Big  Jim? 

"It  was  pretty  simple:  Don't  lie.  That's 
the  only  time  you'd  get  in  trouble  with 
Pop.  You'd  get  the  belt  then.  .  .  .  Another 
rule  growing  up  was  that  you  couldn't  say 
'I  can't'  in  front  of  him.  You'd  see  him 
start  to  fume." 

"Once  m'dad  kinda  went  busted," 
Rooster  recalls.  "M'mama  started  sellin' 
those  damn  cosmetics.  She'd  go  in  there 
and  git  everybody  pumped  up  and  she'd 
go,  'Now,  look  at  him!'  Matthew'uz  'bout 
17  then,  and  she'd  put  that  stuff  on  him 
and  use  him  as  a  model.  Well,  hell,  he 
got  t'breakin'  out  like  y'wouldn't  believe. 
Zits  everywhere!  Mother  would  go,  'Oh, 
it's  just  bringin'  the  poisons  out.'  His  ol' 
face'uz  horrible.  M'dad  got  all  upset  and 
went  and  got  a  lawyer  t'sue.  They  called 
up  later  and  wanted  him  t'do  a  $50,000 
settlement.  Dad  said,  'Screw  'em!  By 
God!  They  ruined  my  son!'  Later  his 
lawyer  called  and  asked  him  if  he'd  read 
the  newspaper  that  mornin'— told  him  he 
wuz  gonna  have  a  hard  time  collectin', 
'cause  his  son  just  won  Best  Lookin'  at 
Longview  High  School.  Dad  had  t'settle 
for  the  50  thou.  Said,  'Goddamn!  I  ain't 
never  gonna  make  any  easy  money.'" 

"I  had  him  around  me  more  than  Jim 
did,"  admits  K-Mac.  "I'd  tell  him  he  could 
be  a  junior  director  at  a  bank.  Told  him  he 
needed  to  do  some  modeling.  .  .  .  You  see, 
my  attitude  is  to  say  yes  to  life.  He  got 
that  from  me.  Yes  yes  yes  yes  yes." 

Everybody  in  Hollywood  was  hearing 
no.  Woody  Harrelson.  Brad  Pitt.  Val 
Kilmer.  They  were  the  three  most  talked- 
about  candidates  for  the  role  of  Jake  Brig- 
ance  in  A  Time  to  Kill,  but  it  seemed  as 
if  every  young  male  star  in  town  were 
fighting  for  it.  The  problem  was  that  au- 
thor John  Grisham  and  director  Joel 
Schumacher  had  a  contract  stating  that 
they  had  to  agree  on  the  casting  of  Jake 
or  the  movie  couldn't  go  forward.  A  year 
went  by;  the  two  were  at  loggerheads. 

The  story  of  the  rape  of  a  10-year-old 
black  girl  by  two  white  boys  and  its 
racially  charged  aftermath  in  a  small  Mis- 
sissippi town,  A  Time  to  Kill  was  Grish- 
am's  first  manuscript.  Jake  Brigance, 
a  preppy  kind  of  rascal  indigenous  to 


Mississippi,  had  to  be  cast  carefully  or 
the  story— Brigance  defends  the  black  fa- 
ther in  front  of  an  all-white  jury  after  he 
murders  the  rapists— would  seem  too 
melodramatic.  The  young  man  cast  as 
Brigance  needed  more  than  a  hero's 
charisma.  He  needed  that  most  mysteri- 
ous and  redemptive  of  all  human  charac- 
teristics: grace. 

Ironically,  Schumacher  had  original- 
ly cast  McConaughey  as  the  villain  of 
the  piece,  a  redneck  brother  of  one  of  the 
rapists.  As  they  were  fleshing  out  the  role 
during  one  of  their  script  sessions,  Mc- 
Conaughey asked  Schumacher  if  it  was 
true  that  Brad  Pitt  had  the  role  of  Jake. 
Schumacher  told  him  he  did  not.  "Then  I 
should  play  it,"  said  McConaughey,  level- 
ing a  cocksure,  lawyer-cold  stare  at  Schu- 
macher. He  went  down  to  Texas  to  shoot 
his  scenes  in  Lone  Star  while  Schuma- 
cher contemplated  the  offer.  On  Mother's 
Day  the  director  called  him  back  to  Los 
Angeles,  and  they  shot  a  secret  screen 
test  in  a  tiny  studio  downtown.  "I  didn't 
want  anyone  in  Hollywood  to  know,"' 
says  Schumacher,  "because  if  Matthew 
didn't  get  the  role,  I  didn't  want  it  to  hurt 
his  career." 

"He  just  had  this  wonderful  connec- 
tion with  the  lens,"  says  Brian  J.  Reyn-. 
olds,  director  of  photography  for  NYPD 
Blue,  whom  Schumacher  had  hired  for 
the  day.  "There  are  a  lot  of  people— fa-j 
mous  ones— that  just  don't  have  that.t 
But  he  got  in  front  of  the  lens  and  just^ 
telegraphed  himself  right  into  the  piecei 
of  film." 

Many  in  Hollywood  are  hailing  Mc- 
Conaughey as  the  next  Paul  Newmanji 
but  he  possesses  the  brute  elegance  of  an-r 
other  50s  rebel  to  which  so  many  young 
actors    aspire    yet    sadly    only    parody* 
Long-waisted,  wistfully  masculine,  he's 
got  the  down-in-the-lumbar  ease  of  an:| 
early  Marlon  Brando.  "I  think  he's  much  j 
more  like  Brando,"  agrees  Schumacher' 
"But  I  do  think  he's  a  total  original.  1 
don't  know  anyone  like  him.  There's  an 
innate  integrity  and,  yes,  elegance  abouti 
Matthew,  yet  there's  a  kind  of  shitkick 
ing,  dangerous  side  to  him,  too.  .  .  .  Un 
fortunately,  one  of  the  things  that  devel- 
oped through  the  grunge  era  was  thai- 
there  was  this  concept  that  attitude  i; 
acting.  As  long  as  you  look  dirty  and 
smoke  a  lot,  then  you're  a  good  actor > 
It's  so  exciting  finally  to  see  someone 
who  is  not  relying  on  attitude." 

"Think  he  can  handle  all  this?" 

"I've  worked  with  some  actors  anc 
actresses  who  are  on  the  brink  of  stardon 
and  I've  worried  about  them  becaust 
I  didn't  think  they  had  the  emotiona 

VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  199. 


Dear 
Friends, 

Several  years 

Writer,  Actress  ^gO,  when 

Cretchen  Cryer  both  of  my 

parents  suddenly  became 
invalids,  we  faced  a  family 
crisis.  They  were  a  thousand 
miles  away  from  me,  unable  to 
shop  or  cook,  and  very  much 
in  need  of  tender  loving  care. 

I  couldn't  leave  my  work  in 
New  York,  so  I  started  cooking 
up  their  favorite  meals,  freezing 
a  week's  supply,  and  sending  it 
second-day  air  to  their  home  in 
Indiana.  The  meals  were  a  hit, 
putting  a  little  "joive  de  vivre" 
back  into  my  parents'  lives.  My 
mother  was  so  thrilled,  she 
suggested  I  go  into  business. 

That  was  five  years  ago. 
Today  we  send  our  delicious 
home-cooked  meals  to  36,000 
people  around  the  country. 
Our  food  is  prepared  with  the 
freshest  of  vegetables,  the 
leanest  cuts  of  meat,  and  no 
added  preservatives.  The  meals 
arrive  frozen,  fully  prepared 
and  need  only  to  be  heated  in 
the  oven  or  microwave. 


Try  a  week's  suppIy-7  full  meals,  and 
assortments  of  breads  and  desserts,  2  loaves  of 
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for  $77,  or  order  both  menus  for  $145. 
(^dinners  that  are  lower  in  fat). 

Menu  1 
1  Beef  Bourguignon  served 
with  herbed  noodles,  green 
beans  &  almonds. 


7 


Menu  2 

Yankee  Pot  Roast  and 

vegetable  gravy,  new 
potatoes,  and  green  beans 
&  almonds." 

2  Fresh  Roasted  Turkey 
Breast  served  with  turkey 
sausage  dressing  and  gravy, 
candied  yams  and  creamed 
baby  peas. 

3  Cornish  Game  Hen  in  a 

Cranberry  Glaze  Dressing, 
green  beans  &  almonds.* 

4  Coq  au  Vin  with 
Boneless  Chicken 
Breast  and  rice  pilaf,  and 
brussel  sprouts. • 

5  Sirloin  Beef  Tips  in  a 

savory  brown  sauce,  with 
herbed  noodles,  spiced 
red  cabbage. 

6  Roast  Pork  with  mush- 
room dressing,  honeyed 
carrots,  braised  red  cabbage. 

7  Minestrone  Soup-one  quart     7  Beef  Barley  Soup-one 

of  hearty  soup  served  with  a  quart  of  hearty  soup,  with  a 

fresh  crusty  loaf  of  White  Bread.  fresh  loaf  of  Wheat  Bread. 

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2  Chicken  Pot  Pie-a  country 
classic  with  large  chunks  of 
chicken  breast  and  vegetables 
topped  with  flaky  crust. 

3  Baked  Glazed  Ham  served 
with  candied  yams  and  green 
beans  &  almonds. 

4  Beef  Stew  served  with  herbed 
noodles  and  a  vegetable  medley. 

5  Stuffed  Pork  Chops  served 
with  gravy,  spiced  red  cabbage, 
homemade  apple-sauce  with 
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6  Chicken  Orzo-a  hearty  meal 
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of  bread. 


ffyM^^ 


^l*^ 


MeConaughey 


strength  yet  to  deal  with  the  consequences 
of  succj'  s  as  well  as  its  perks.  I  don't  real- 
ly worry  about  Matthew." 


'H 


is  name  is  Malcolm— for  Malcolm  X," 
says  the  grand  old  dame  sitting  in  a 
thronelike  wicker  chair  in  the  garden  of 
the  Chateau  Marmont.  On  my  way  to  visit 
MeConaughey  out  at  his  house  on  the 
beach  in  Malibu,  I've  stopped  to  pet  her 
black  pug.  "Isn't  he  sweet?"  she  asks,  and 
I  suddenly  realize  that  Malcolm's  owner  is 
Sylvia  Sidney  who  arguably  has  had  the 
longest  career  of  any  actress  in  Holly- 
wood. Eighty-six  now,  and  in  her  70th  year 
as  an  actress,  she's  in  L.A.  filming  Tim 
Burton's  new  movie,  Mars  Attacks!  I  ex- 
plain why  I'm  in  town  and  ask  her  if  she 
has  any  advice  for  MeConaughey,  since  he 
is  just  starting  out.  "What  is  the  secret  to 
such  a  long-running  career?"  I  ask  her. 

Sidney  laughs  at  the  absurdity  of  my 
question.  "That's  simple,  honey:  Don't  die." 

"This  is  Miss  Hud.  Isn't  she  sweet?" 
MeConaughey  asks  when  his  own  beloved 
pet,  a  mix  of  Labrador  and  Chow,  comes 
bounding  up  to  me  in  Malibu  as  I'm  re- 
peating to  him  Sidney's  blunt  reply. 

"J.  k.  livin',  man,"  he  reiterates. 

Upstairs,  by  McConaughey's  bed,  are 
two  of  his  favorite  books.  Will  Durant's 
The  Story  of  Philosophy,  and  The  Great- 
est Salesman  in  the  World,  by  Og  Mandi- 
no.  "I  was  20  when  I  found  that— the 
first  book  I  ever  read  cover  to  cover.  It 
woke  me  up,"  he  tells  me,  pointing  to 
the  Mandino,  a  slim,  quasi-religious  self- 
help  volume.  MeConaughey  slides  open 
a  glass  door  above  his  turquoise  bathtub 
and  we  climb  out  onto  a  balcony  over- 
looking the  Pacific  Ocean.  "This  is  a 
long  way  from  Texas,"  I  remark. 

"Texas'll  always  be  in  my  hip  pocket." 

"Do  you  ever  get  homesick  not  only 
for  chicken -fried  steak  but  also  for  a  less 
complicated  life?  Do  you  worry  about  be- 
coming cynical?" 

The  piercing  look  K-Mac  has  men- 
tioned settles  into  McConaughey's  eyes. 
"That  was  one  of  the  things  I  was  being 
thankful  about  this  morning,  being  able 
to  find  the  goodness  in  people,"  he  finally 
says.  "One  of  the  things  I'm  going  to 
have  to  watch,  though,  is  the  one  thing 
that  makes  me  tick:  trust.  .  .  .  Man,  I'm 
definite!)  changing.  It's  really  cool  to  be 
)  to  the  pro  shop  and  buy  Ti- 
tletst  Balata  100s,  the  best  golf  balls  there 
are.  Or  to  buy  the  truck  I've  always  want- 
ed, a  black  G  M.C.  Yukon,  and  be  able 
to  give  01'  Blue,  my  '90  Dodge  Ram,  to 


my  brother  to  help  him  haul  pipe.  .  .  . 
But  I'm  very  quickly  having  to  become 
less  impressed  and  more  involved  with 
my  life.  .  .  .  There  are  certain  times 
you've  just  got  to  hand  it  over  to  God 
and  say,  'T/iank  you.'  Don't  ever  think 
you've  got  it  figured  out." 

Miss  Hud  jumps  over  the  tub  and  joins 
us  outside.  She  licks  at  his  stubble  until 
she's  cleaned  that  piercing  look  right  off 
his  face.  "Is  Miss  Hud  the  only  woman  in 
your  life  right  now?"  I  ask,  knowing  he's 
recently  dated  Ashley  Judd,  who  plays  his 
wife  in  A  Time  to  Kill. 

"Yep." 

"You  looking?" 

"No,  I'm  not  looking.  Nope." 

"Is  Miss  Hud  named  for  the  movie?" 

"Yep.  I  love  that  character.  You've  got 
a  guy  who,  on  paper,  is  not  a  good  guy  at 
all,  but  then  you've  got  somebody  like 
Newman  playing  it  and  you  love  him.  He 
stuck  it  out  through  his  own  demons." 

"That's  the  second  time  you've  men- 
tioned demons.  What  are  yours?" 

"Questions  without  answers." 

"Is  Hud  an  example  of  the  kind  of 
movie  you  want  to  make?"  I  ask. 

"I  want  to  do  things  where  a  father 
can  take  his  son  and  point  up  at  the 
screen  and  go.  'Watch  him!  He's  good  in 
this.  He's  a  good  man.'" 

MeConaughey  stares  down  at  his  dead 
father's  initial  ring.  A  size  too  big  for 
him,  it  is  fashioned  from  his  parents' 
class  rings  melted  down  with  gold  from 
K-Mac's  teeth.  He  wears  it  on  the  middle 
finger  of  his  right  hand.  "How  did  your 
father  die,  Matthew?"  I  ask. 

Bemusement  crowds  the  light  from  his 
face.  Tears  threaten,  but  they  have  long 
ago  been  shed.  "A  heart  fibrillation,"  he 
says.  "It  was  sudden.  He  had  just  finished 
making  love  to  my  mother  on  Monday 
morning  at  seven.  Had  a  heart  fibrillation 
on  top  of  her.  Oh,  man,  that's  the  best 
way  to  go.  He  used  to  say,  'That's  how 
I'm  gonna  go,  boys!' " 

MeConaughey  is  determined  not  to  cry. 

"You're  still  just  a  baby,  aren't  you?" 

"Yeah,  I  know,"  he  says  with  more  se- 
riousness than  he's  said  anything  else  this 
afternoon.  "I  know." 

4T  'm  wicked.  I'm  sexy.  I'm  heaven,"  Mc- 
_L  Conaughey  says  as  he  saunters  about 
on  the  parched  portion  of  Antelope  Valley 
we've  staked  out  for  our  last  photo  shoot. 
On  a  Bose  boom  box,  the  Eagles  are  in- 
sisting that  "everybody's  talkin'  'bout  the 
new  kid  in  town."  Relaxed,  buckling  up  af- 
ter a  beer-induced  bathroom  visit,  this 
newest  one  heads  face-first  and  fame-ready 
straight  toward  the  camera's  lens. 


"That's  it,  Matthew,  keep  walking. 
More,"  Herb  Ritts  calls  out,  "more." 

Laughing  at  himself,  MeConaughey 
fakes  a  female  model's  haughty  attitude, 
and  showing  off  for  the  amused  L'Wren 
he  rhythmically  prances  to  the  Eagles' 
next  song.  He  spins  round  and  round  the 
sagebrush  and  Joshua  trees  as  if  he  were 
on  a  Paris  runway.  He  pauses.  Pouts. 
Sticks  out  his  butt.  A  battered  armchair 
with  a  flowered  cover  is  brought  out  into 
the  flowerless  landscape.  MeConaughey 
plops  down—  enough  of  this  bullshit— in 
the  overstuffed  chair  with  his  legs  splayed 
as  if  he  were  ready  now  for  three  more 
quarters  of  Cowboy  football.  He  slips  a 
hand  down  the  front  of  his  jeans  and,  un- 
embarrassed, rearranges  himself.  The  Ea- 
gles won't  shut  up.  "Don't  you  have  any 
Dylan?"  he  asks. 

A  few  more  photos  and  the  shoot  is 
over.  Ritts,  MeConaughey,  and  I  climb 
into  a  helicopter  for  the  flight  back  to 
L.A.  MeConaughey  sits  up  front  next  to 
the  pilot.  The  floorboard  is  transparent, 
and  he  marvels  at  the  lengthening  land- 
scape as  we  lift  off. 

"We  might  run  into  some  turbulence 
in  the  mountain  passes,"  the  pilot  warns. 

Sure  enough,  we  are  soon  buffeted  by 
pockets    of    wind,    and    the    helicopter 
bounces  about.  "Want  to  hear  a  joke?" 
MeConaughey  asks,  to  take  our  minds  off 
the  bumpy  ride.  "There's  this  kindergarten 
teacher.  She  has  a  question  for  her  class:  If 
there  are  three  birds  sitting  on  a  fence  and 
one  flies  away,  how  many  birds  are  left?  A 
little  boy  in  the  back  raises  his  hand  and 
says  there  are  none  left  because  when  one 
took  off  the  other  ones  followed.  The 
teacher  says,  'No,  there  are  two  left.  But  I 
like  the  way  you  think.'  Later,  the  same  lit-  • 
tie  boy  raises  his  hand  and  tells  the  teacher 
he's  got  a  question  for  her.  'There  are  ■ 
three  women  eating  ice-cream  cones,'  he 
says.  'One  of  them  is  licking  it,  one  is  bit-  • 
ing  it,  and  one  is  sucking  it.  Which  woman  i 
is  married?'  The  teacher  ponders  for  a 
minute,  then  says  it's  the  one  sucking  it. 
The  little  boy  tells  her,  'No,  it's  the  one  : 
with  the  wedding  ring  on.  But  I  like  the  : 
way  you  think.'"  MeConaughey  giggles 
just  like  that  kindergartner  might  have,  . 
and  it's  hard  to  tell  if  he's  still  acting  out  t 
the  joke  or  if  that  giggle— cocky,  preco-  - 
cious— is  all  his  own. 

The  ride  calms  down,  and  we  float  in 
silence  the  rest  of  the  way.  Coming  over 
the  last  bit  of  mountain  range,  we  see  the 
lights  of  Los  Angeles  in  the  distance.  Me- 
Conaughey sighs  and  sizes  up  his  gaudy 
new  home.  "This  is  surreal,"  he  mutters, 
and  stares  down  through  the  floorboard 
at  all  that  awaits  him  there  at  his  feet.  □ 


138 


VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


Panchen  Larm 


i 


(Continued  from  page  106)  all  4,000  of  his 
monks  were  seized  and  several  executed 
for  alleged  complicity  in  the  revolt,  he 
had  a  change  of  heart  about  scientific  so- 
cialism. The  Panchen  parted  a  throng  in 
Lhasa  pleading  for  food  and  medical  care 
and  went  to  Beijing,  and  in  May  1962  he 
delivered  to  Mao  a  blistering  70,000- 
character  report  on  conditions  in  Tibet  in 
which  he  demanded  genuine  religious 
freedom  and  the  end  of  mass  arrests.  This 
did  not  endear  him  to  the  generals,  who 
two  years  later  gave  him  a  last  chance  to 
toe  the  line.  He  was  supposed  to  de- 
nounce the  Dalai  Lama  before  a  huge 
crowd  celebrating  the  Monlam  prayer  fes- 
tival, but  instead  he  said,  "His  Holiness 
the  Dalai  Lama  was  abducted  from  his 
country  to  a  foreign  land.  .  .  .  Today, 
while  we  are  gathered  here,  I  must  pro- 
nounce my  firm  belief  that  Tibet  will 
soon  regain  her  independence  and  that 
His  Holiness  the  Dalai  Lama  will  return 
to  the  Golden  Throne.  Long  live  His  Ho- 
liness the  Dalai  Lama!" 

Livid,  the  Communists  immediately  put 
the  Panchen  under  house  arrest,  branded 
him  "the  biggest  parasite  and  vampire  in 
Tibet,"  and  launched  a  campaign  "to  thor- 
oughly smash  the  Panchen  Reactionary 
:  Clique."  From  September  through  No- 
ivember  1964  in  Lhasa,  he  endured  a  50- 
Iday  thamzing,  or  "struggle  session,"  in 
■which  he  was  pulled  from  his  chair  by 
cadres,  slapped,  punched,  kicked,  and 
spat  upon  by  his  former  "serfs."  He  was 
accused  of  murder,  cohabiting  with  his 
brother's  wife,  participating  in  orgies, 
stealing  sacred  objects  from  monasteries, 
and  supplying  horses  to  the  guerrillas.  He 
was  taken  to  Beijing  and  in  1967  was  sen- 
tenced to  10  years  in  prison,  much  of 
which  he  spent  in  solitary  confinement. 
Regularly  tortured,  he  contemplated  sui- 
cide. Finally,  in  1977  he  returned  to  life  as 
an  ordinary  citizen  in  Beijing.  A  British 
journalist  who  attended  his  last  press  con- 
ference, in  1989,  recalls  him  as  "this  huge, 
fearsome  guy  with  a  deep,  gravelly  voice." 
With  typically  reckless  honesty  he  declared 
:hat  the  Chinese  had  on  balance  done 
iiore  harm  than  good  in  Tibet.  Five  days 
ater  he  was  dead  of  an  apparent  heart  al- 
ack at  the  age  of  50.  He  was  seriously  over- 
weight and  a  prime  candidate  for  a  heart 
ittack,  but  many  Tibetans,  including  the 
3alai  Lama,  suspect  that  he  was  poisoned. 

In  the  fall  of  1990  I  saw  the  lOth's  em- 
>almed  body  sitting  in  full  regalia  in  a 
;lass  case  on  an  altar  at  Tashilhunpo 
Monastery,  keeping  an  eye  on  things  until 


his  reincarnation  was  found.  This  was  the 
usual  practice  with  the  top  incarnates.  The 
late  13  th  Dalai  Lama  was  similarly  dressed 
and  set  out  facing  south,  and  when  the 
time  was  deemed  auspicious  to  begin  the 
search  for  his  reincarnation,  his  head  is 
said  to  have  suddenly  swiveled  east,  indi- 
cating which  part  of  the  country  to  look  in. 

It  is  six  hours  by  car  from  Lhasa  to 
Nagchu,  the  capital  of  Nagchu  Prefec- 
ture, where  both  little  boys  now  pro- 
claimed as  the  11th  Panchen  Lama  were 
born.  In  addition,  they  both  came  from 
the  same  district,  Lhari— apparently  the 
clues  provided  to  the  then  acting  Tashil- 
hunpo abbot,  Chatrel  Rinpoche,  by  the 
goddess  of  Lhamo  Nam,  the  sacred  lake, 
pointed  in  that  direction.  The  overnight 
trip  to  Nagchu  is  a  deviation  that  can 
easily  arouse  the  P.S.B.'s  suspicions.  We 
sprang  it  on  our  Tibetan  guide,  Rabgyal, 
yesterday,  and  he  has  done  his  best  to 
dissuade  us.  It  isn't  a  tourist  destination, 
he  tells  us.  There  is  nothing  in  Nagchu 
except  snow  and  ice  and  emptiness  and 
military  installations. 

Nagchu  is  on  the  edge  of  the  Chang 
Tang— the  largest  high  plain  on  the  plan- 
et, which  takes  up  the  northern  half  of 
Tibet  and  is  about  the  size  of  Utah  and 
Nevada  combined.  The  Chang  Tang  is 
the  last  great  home  of  the  kiang,  or  wild 
ass;  the  wild  yak;  the  Tibetan  antelope, 
wolf,  gazelle,  and  brown  bear;  the  argali 
sheep,  with  its  big,  curling  horns  like 
those  of  bighorns;  Evermann's  polecat; 
even  a  few  hundred  snow  leopards.  Mil- 
lions of  black-lipped  pikas,  resembling 
guinea  pigs,  live  in  labyrinthine  burrows 
in  which  they  store  a  sweet,  starchy  root 
called  troma,  which  the  Tibetans  dig  up 
and  eat  at  New  Year's. 

Practically  devoid  of  river  systems 
and  studded  with  brackish  lakes,  this 
windswept  grassland  is  virtually  uninhab- 
ited, roamed  only  by  occasional  hunters, 
collectors  of  salt  and  borax,  nomads  (or 
drokpa,  the  people  of  the  high  plateau) 
with  herds  of  yaks  and  flocks  of  sheep, 
and  bandits.  Its  average  elevation  is 
16,000  feet,  and  winter  temperatures  can 
hit  40  below.  This  was  where  the  Panchen 
Lama  decided  to  reincarnate,  so  we  have 
to  go  there. 

We  stop  at  a  little  village  with  a  mon- 
astery in  a  mauve-and-gray  badlands 
Georgia  O'Keeffe  might  have  painted.  A 
crowd  soon  gathers  around  the  car. 

Until  a  few  years  ago  everyone  from  the 
village  would  go  off  on  a  three-month  trek 
out  on  the  Chang  Tang  with  their  yaks  to 
get  salt  to  trade  in  Lhasa.  Now  they  do 
it  in  trucks.  The  arrival  of  the  internal- 


combustion  engine  is  doing  in  the  tradi- 
tional nomadic  way  of  life.  Trading  cara- 
vans are  becoming  a  thing  of  the  past  be- 
cause trucks  now  come  to  the  villages  with 
goods  to  trade;  they  pull  right  up  to  your 
tent.  The  country  between  Lhasa  and  Nag- 
chu used  to  be  crawling  with  wildlife,  but 
it  was  shot  out  by  soldiers  of  the  People's 
Liberation  Army  with  automatic  weapons, 
who  threw  the  carcasses  onto  trucks. 

A  range  of  pure-white  conical  peaks, 
considered  sacred,  rises  to  our  left.  At  the 
head  of  a  pass,  with  a  bitter  wind  that 
makes  the  temperature  feel  like  10  below, 
two  young  men  are  prostrating  like  inch- 
worms  along  the  road;  a  third  is  pulling  a 
cart  loaded  with  their  tent  and  food.  The 
prostrators  first  touch  their  hands,  clasped 
in  prayer,  to  the  tops  of  their  heads,  then 
to  their  throats,  to  their  hearts,  and  then, 
instead  of  falling  to  their  knees  and  flop- 
ping full-length  to  the  ground  (as  the  pros- 
trators before  the  great  doors  of  the 
Jokhang  do),  they  fling  themselves  like 
sledders  onto  wooden  blocks  attached  to 
their  hands  and  glide  for  six  or  eight  feet, 
and  finally  hit  the  ground  full-length. 
Then  they  get  up  and  do  it  again.  They 
are  happy  to  talk  with  us  and  be  pho- 
tographed. The  three  of  them,  we  learn, 
left  their  home  in  Derge,  just  over  the 
Sichuan  border,  11  months  and  24  days 
ago,  and  are  prostrating  their  way  to  the 
great  monasteries— Drepung,  Sera,  and 
Tashilhunpo— covering  about  five  miles  a 
day.  They  haven't  heard  that  there  are  two 
Panchen  Lamas,  and  were  hoping  to  find 
the  first  at  Tashilhunpo  to  get  his  blessing. 
Why  are  you  doing  this?  I  ask  one.  "To 
purify  our  bodies  so  we  can  have  a  better 
rebirth.  What  other  reason  can  there  be?" 
he  replies  cheerily. 

Nagchu,  which  we  reach  at  dusk,  is  the 
principal  trading  center  of  the  northern 
Chang  Tang.  The  streets  are  full  of  men 
in  fox-fur  hats  reminiscent  of  the  coon- 
skin  caps  of  the  early  American  frontier. 
Some  are  shooting  pool  on  outdoor  ta- 
bles, although  sudden  sandstorms  mo- 
mentarily stop  the  games. 

We  are  the  only  guests  at  the  Nagchu 
Hotel.  The  brochure  has  a  facsimile  of  the 
10th  Panchen's  signature;  he  slept  here  on 
September  15,  1985.  The  water  has  been 
shut  off  for  the  winter,  but  the  TV  works. 
After  dinner  we  turn  it  on.  Suddenly  little 
Gyaltsen  Norbu,  the  Chinese  soul  boy,  ap- 
pears on  the  screen  in  a  saffron  silk  jacket 
and  peaked  hat,  looking  like  an  adorable 
but  slightly  bewildered  Panchen  doll. 
President  Jiang  Zemin  and  other  party 
leaders  are  hosting  a  reception  for  him  in 
the  Great  Hall  of  the  People  in  Beijing. 
Jiang  exhorts  him   in  Chinese  to  study 


ANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


139 


Pancln 


(mi  Lama 


well,  grow  up  healthy,  maintain  national 
unity,  and  carry  on  the  patriotism  of  his 
previous  incarnation,  and  the  boy  promis- 
es in  Tibetan  to  become  a  patriotic  and 
religious  living  Buddha.  He  is  surround- 
ed by  an  entourage  of  monks  and  lamas, 
one  of  whom  is  Sengchen  Lobsang 
Gyaltsen,  the  head  of  Tashilhunpo  Mon- 
astery and  of  the  search  committee  that 
chose  Gyaltsen  Norbu.  By  all  accounts 
Sengchen  is  a  power-hungry,  Vichy  tulku, 
who  collaborates  with  the  Chinese  and 
was  one  of  the  10th  Panchen's  principal 
accusers  at  his  thamzing. 

The  next  morning  we  drop  in  on  the 
political  chairman  of  the  Nagchu  Reli- 
gious Affairs  Bureau,  Drugpon  Rinpoche, 
who  lives  behind  the  monastery  in  town. 
We  find  Drugpon  in  his  living  room.  In- 
stead of  the  usual  Dalai  and  Panchen 
Lama  pictures  which  most  Tibetans  have 
on  their  walls,  he  has  photos  of  Chinese 
officers,  and  in  one  corner  stands  a  small 
washing  machine:  there  can't  be  many  of 
these  in  Nagchu.  Drugpon  says  he  can't 
talk  to  us,  because  someone  has  just  died. 
He  doesn't  remember  his  own  discovery, 
he  wasn't  involved  in  the  discovery  of  the 
Chinese  soul  boy,  and  he  has  no  opinion 
on  the  Panchen  controversy;  it  isn't  his 
business.  Clearly,  he  isn't  going  to  jeopar- 
dize his  washing  machine. 

We  find  another  tulku  at  the  bureau  of- 
fice, sitting  in  a  room  with  an  apparat- 
chik who  is  entering  figures  in  a  ledger. 
The  tulku's  name  is  Gyaltsen  Rinpoche, 
and  he  has  the  gentle  other worldliness 
one  expects  in  an  incarnate  lama.  Isn't 
the  new  Panchen  Lama  the  most  impor- 
tant tulku  that  Nagchu  has  ever  pro- 
duced? I  ask  innocently. 

Yes,  the  rinpoche  replies. 

Were  you  involved  in  his  discovery? 

No.  The  search  for  the  Panchen  was 
conducted  by  a  committee  from  the  Chi- 
nese government  that  included  many  high 
Tibetan  religious  officials. 

That  is  true,  as  far  as  it  goes.  In  reali- 
ty, things  were  a  bit  more  complicat- 
ed. After  the  10th  Panchen  Lama  died, 
on  January  28,  1989,  Chatrel  Rinpoche. 
the  acting  abbot  of  Tashilhunpo,  a  51- 
year-old  monk  with  a  reputation  for 
piety  and  asceticism,  was  named  head  of 
the  search  committee,  as  tradition  dictat- 
ed. The  party  eventually  gave  its  support 
and  I  that  the  Dalai  Lama  would 

have  »nsulted.  But  when  His  Ho- 

liness pr  i  •  ed  sending  a  religious  dele- 
gation to  I       :  to  offer  prayers,  Li  Peng, 

140 


the  party's  prime  minister,  responded 
the  following  month  that  "outsiders" 
would  not  be  allowed  to  "meddle  in  the 
selection  procedure." 

Still,  the  Dalai  Lama  wanted  to  be  in- 
volved, "because  the  present  incarnation 
has  a  very  crucial  role  to  play,"  as  he  put 
it  in  a  statement  after  he  announced  his 
choice.  "There  are  several  political  rea- 
sons which  make  him  crucial."  (The  main 
one  is  that  he  will  help  select  and  educate 
the  next  Dalai  Lama.)  Two  years  later, 
the  Dalai  Lama  again  requested  that  Bei- 
jing let  him  send  a  delegation  to  conduct 
divination  rituals  at  a  sacred  lake,  and 
again  he  was  told  there  was  no  need  for 
interference.  Meanwhile,  Chatrel  Rin- 
poche interpreted  clues  left  by  the  late 
Panchen  and  looked  for  other  signs  and 
wonders.  He  journeyed  to  Lhamo  Nam, 
the  sacred  lake  at  the  eastern  end  of  Ti- 
bet, and  as  he  gazed  and  meditated,  its 
resident  goddess  provided  him  with  vital 
clues:  the  year  in  which  the  boy  was  born 
and  the  part  of  the  country  in  which  he 
should  search.  He  also  visited  Lhamo 
Lhatso,  the  sacred  lake  whose  surface  had 
given  a  vision  of  the  Dalai  Lama's  house 
in  1935,  and  on  July  17,  1993,  it  was  com- 
municated to  the  Dalai  Lama  that  visits 
to  the  two  lakes  had  confirmed  that  the 
Panchen  Lama  had  reincarnated  and  was 
ready  to  be  found. 

The  names  of  28  candidates  were  deliv- 
ered to  the  Dalai  Lama,  who  did  a  mo 
(threw  the  dice)  to  find  out  if  the  reincar- 
nation was  among  them;  the  divination 
was  affirmative.  Then,  by  throwing  the 
dice  three  times  for  each  boy,  he  short- 
listed the  most  likely  candidates,  whose 
names  he  wrapped  in  doughballs,  which 
he  rotated  in  a  shallow  chalice.  Choekyi 
Nyima's  name  jumped  out. 

A  monk  in  Dharamsala  demonstrated 
the  doughball  divination,  which  is  also 
used  for  secular  decisions  such  as  those 
concerning  one's  job  or  marriage.  Chunks 
of  barley  dough  are  shaped  into  spheres 
the  size  of  golf  balls  and  placed  on  a 
scale  to  make  sure  they  all  weigh  the 
same,  then  rolled  clockwise  in  a  chalice 
while  the  monk  chants,  until  one  ball, 
propelled  by  the  energy  of  being  the 
rightful  one  (or  so  it  is  believed)  pops 
out.  It  is  really  quite  dramatic,  like  one  of 
the  hyperactive  Ping-Pong  balls  in  the 
televised  nightly  Megabucks  lottery. 

When  the  Dalai  Lama  made  his  an- 
nouncement, in  May  1995,  the  Chinese 
were  furious,  especially  because  monks 
at  Tashilhunpo  had  collaborated.  Abbot 
Chatrel  Rinpoche  was  arrested  and  has 
not  been  seen  since.  A  ban  was  imposed 
on  gatherings  of  more  than  three  people 


and  on  publicly  discussing  the  Panchen's 
incarnation,  and  the  Chinese  People's  Po- 
litical Consultative  Conference  held  an 
emergency  two-day  session  in  which  the  \ 
Dalai  Lama's  declaration  was  unanimous- 1 
ly  condemned  as  "illegal  and  invalid."  ! 
Monks  and  lay  Tibetans  all  over  the 
country  were  forced  to  attend  re-educa- 
tion sessions  in  which  they  had  to  de- 
nounce the  Dalai  Lama  and  his  soul  boy. 
Xinhua,  the  party's  official  news  agency, 
launched  a  smear  campaign,  accusing  lit- 
tle Choekyi  Nyima  of  having  once 
drowned  a  dog  and  describing  his  parents 
as  notorious  for  "speculation,  deceit,  and 
scrambling  for  fame  and  profit." 

Choekyi  Nyima,  his  parents,  and  his 
elder  brother  were  picked  up  by  the 
P.S.B.  in  Lhari,  driven  to  Nagchu,  and 
put  on  a  plane  for  parts  unknown.  "To 
know  the  whereabouts  of  every  average 
Chinese  and  introduce  them  to  you  is 
not  the  job  of  the  Foreign  Ministry,"  a 
spokesman  snapped  in  answer  to  a  query 
at  a  September  1995  press  conference 
about  Choekyi  Nyima.  "He  is  just  one  of 
the  1.2  billion  people  in  China."  In  No->j 
vember,  75  high  lamas  and  others  were 
forced  to  go  to  Beijing  (some  feigned  ill— lj 
ness  to  no  avail)  and  come  up  with  three 
finalists,  which  they  did  after  being  se- 
questered for  five  days.  The  drawing  cere- 
mony in  Lhasa  took  place  before  dawn 
on  November  29,  to  foil  any  planned  dis-s 
ruption  of  the  politically  charged  event.t 
An  ivory  slip  with  Gyaltsen  NorbuV 
name  was  drawn  from  the  golden  urn.i, 
The  boy,  flanked  by  his  parents,  reacted; 
to  the  news  that  he  was  the  new  incarna-i 
tion  with  indifference.  The  whole  ceremo-.' 
ny  took  15  minutes,  then  the  boy  was  pre-< 
sented  to  a  hastily  conscripted  crowd  out-i 
side  who  cheered  him,  and  was  whisked 
off  to  the  Panchen's  palace  in  Shigatse. 

Outside  Nagchu  we  take  the  turnoff 
to  Lhari  and  stop  at  a  cluster  of  adobe* 
houses,  where  a  woman  tells  us  there  istff 
snow  in  the  pass  and  no  chance  of  getting  ; 
through  to  the  Panchen  boys'  homes.  But   i 
the    naturalist    George    Schaller,    who 
spends  several  months  of  the  year  on  thei '  n 
Chang   Tang,    told   me   he   had   passed 
through  Lhari  in  the  late  80s,  looking  fonja 
wildlife.  It  was  a  beautiful,  mountainous  si 
area,  he  recalled,  with  forests  on  the  loweri'iC 
slopes,  unlike  Nagchu,  which  is  on  the  high  ( 
plain.  The  people  lived  in  stone  houses 
with  shingle  roofs,  and  in  the  summer  \ 
they  took  their  yaks  and  sheep  up  to  high  r 
alpine  meadows  and  lived  in  tents;  in  the  :m 
winter  they  grazed  them  in  the  forest. 
Lhari  itself  was  a  small  country  town  with 
a  bunch  of  cement  government  buildings. 
Both  Choekyi  Nyima  and  Gyaltsen  Nor- 

VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  \996 


The  Dalai  Lama 
complained 
to  me  that  there 
is  "too  much 
reincarnation. 


bu  are  apparently  from  relatively  well- 
to-do  families.  The  Chinese  soul  boy's 
I  father  is  said  to  be  a  minor  party  offi- 
I  cial;  the  Dalai  Lama's  boy's  father  is  a 
i  doctor  who  evidently  belongs  to  a  lin- 
I  eage  of  holy  men. 

Back  in  Lhasa  the  next  morning,  our 
guide,  Rabgyal,  has  big  news.  At 
i  10  the  night  before  his  wife  heard  a 
I  huge  explosion.  Someone  has  bombed 
r  the  house  of  the  Chinese  Panchen's 
I  mentor,  Sengchen  Lobsang  Gyaltsen, 
jlthe  ex-monk  whom  we  had  seen  with 
the  little  boy  on  Beijing  television.  This 
is  not  surprising,  because  he  is  proba- 
bly the  most  hated  man  in  Tibet.  Some- 
one who  knows  him  well  tells  me  that 
Sengchen  is  "very  bad.  He  got  promot- 
ed because  he  was  so  critical  of  the  last 
Panchen.  He  married  the  widow  of  the 
richest  man  in  Tibet.  They  have  three 
daughters,  but  he  still  chases  women, 
drinks,  and  plays  mah-jong.  He  was  very 
glad  to  see  the  downfall  of  [his  predeces- 
sor as  head  of  Tashilhunpo]  Chatrel  Rin- 
poche  and  to  step  into  his  shoes.  He  be- 
longs to  the  Changze  lineage  but  is  a  dis- 
grace to  all  tulkus." 

P.S.B.  agents  have  fanned  out  into  the 
bars  and  teahouses  to  sniff  for  leads  but  so 
far  have  turned  up  nothing.  The  big  ques- 
tion is:  Was  this  an  isolated  act,  or  is  there 
an  underground  resistance  movement  that 
is  beginning  to  exercise  the  terrorist  op- 
tion—one of  the  few  Tibetans  have  left? 

There  is,  my  Tibetan  companion  Seph- 
en  tells  me,  a  clandestine  and  dedicated  re- 
sistance group  that  calls  itself  the  Tiger 
Cubs  and  is  said  to  steal  its  arms  from  the 
Chinese.  From  his  local  contacts  Sephen 
finds  out  that  the  Cubs  are  responsible  for 
bombing  Sengchen's  house,  not  for  public- 
ity but  to  send  Sengchen  a  message.  The 
message  was  delivered  in  verse:  "Releasing 
i  fish  in  a  pond  doesn't  mean  it  is  totally 
free."  In  other  words,  don't  swim  too 
freely  with  the  Chinese  or  we'll  get  you. 
"A  few  days  before  the  urn  ceremo- 


ny," Rabgyal  tells  me,  "Sengchen  went  to 
Drepung  Monastery,  followed  by  a  bat- 
tery of  video  cameras,  with  money  for 
the  monks,  but  the  monks  thought  that  if 
they  took  the  money  they  would  be  por- 
trayed as  accepting  the  Chinese  Panchen, 
so  the  majority  of  them  walked  out.  Only 
6  of  the  300  remained.  Sengchen  is  in 
Beijing  with  the  boy,  so  he  wasn't  hurt 
by  the  explosion.  Now  he  is  saying  that 
he  doesn't  want  to  be  the  head  of  Tashil- 
hunpo anymore." 

When  I  returned  to  the  States,  I  asked 
Lodi  Gyari,  the  Dalai  Lama's  Washington- 
based  special  envoy  and  the  president  of 
the  International  Campaign  for  Tibet, 
what  he  knew  about  the  Tiger  Cubs.  He 
said  they  are  an  indigenous  group  that 
had  not  been  set  up  by  the  exile  govern- 
ment in  Dharamsala  and  had  dropped 
out  of  sight  10  years  ago;  some  of  its 
members  had  gone  into  exile.  Now,  it 
seemed,  they  were  back  in  business.  "In 
the  absence  of  any  solution,  as  repression 
continues  and  the  culture  and  religion  be- 
come more  and  more  diluted,  and  hope- 


lessness grows,  acts  of  violence,  by  a 
handful  who  feel  it's  either  cave  in  or 
start  shopping  for  arms,  will  happen 
whether  we  like  it  or  not.  We  [the  exile 
government]  cannot  condone  them,  but 
'm  afraid  they  are  unavoidable." 

Clearly  there  are  some  Tibetans  who  are 
growing  impatient  with  the  Dalai  Lama's 
policy  of  nonviolence  toward  the  Chinese, 
to  which  he  remains  steadfastly  committed. 

The  middle  road  to  Shigatse,  the  tradi- 
tional seat  of  the  Panchen  Lama,  fol- 
lows the  Yarlung  Brahmaputra,  a  tributary 
of  the  Ganges,  through  a  Shangri-la-like 
mountainscape,  a  spectacular  gorge,  and  a 
dune  desert.  We  spot  a  flock  of  very  rare 
black-necked  cranes.  This  one-horse  town 
is  the  epicenter  of  the  controversy,  and  se- 
curity is  very  tight.  In  July  1995  six  monks 
staged  a  protest  over  the  arrest  of  the 
Dalai  Lama's  soul  boy  and  were  them- 
selves arrested,  nieir  whereabouts  are  un- 
known. At  midnight  on  the  12th  of  that 
month,  28  other  monks  were  also  arrested 
after  boycotting  the  Zamling  Chisang  fes- 
tival, when  a  huge  tangka,  or  religious 
scroll  painting,  is  unfurled  above  the 
monastery.  Other  casualties  included  the 
keeper  of  the  10th  Panchen's  stupa,  or 
shrine,  who  committed  suicide. 

The  once  imposing  castle  of  the  King 
of  Tsang,  built  in  the  17th  century  on  a  hill 
overlooking  Shigatse,  lies  in  ruins,  dyna- 
mited during  the  Cultural  Revolution.  The 
three  Tibetans  in  our  party,  Sephen,  Rab- 
gyal, and  the  driver,  are  as  much  strangers 
here  as  are  Jeffrey  Aaronson  and  I.  There 
is  a  different  psychology  in  Shigatse  from 


l/ANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


141 


Panchen  Lama 

the  one  in  Lhasa,  Rabgyal  explains.  If  the 
police  sunt  hassling  a  Tibetan  on  a  bus  in 
Lhasa,  everyone  "mobs  up"  so  he  can  es- 
cape. Here  no  one  gets  involved. 

We  decide  to  start  by  circumambulating 
the  monastery;  if  anyone  is  going  to  be 
straight  with  us,  it  will  be  devotees.  A 
stinging  sandstorm  whips  through  the 
streets,  so  we  put  on  white  gauze  dust 
masks  that  make  us  feel,  at  least,  somewhat 
incognito,  and  join  the  pilgrims  who  are 
performing  the  kora— the  circuit  around  the 
monastery.  As  they  shuffle  along,  they  mut- 
ter mantras  and  give  the  brass  prayer  cylin- 
ders set  in  the  monastery  walls  merit-gener- 
ating spins.  A  large  population  of  mangy 
pariah  dogs  is  curled  up  in  balls  of  two  or 
three  along  the  path,  snoozing  in  crevices 
between  ledges,  waiting  for  the  fall  of 
night,  which  they  own  with  their  incessant 
howling  and  yelping. 

The  path  leads  up  the  mountain  of 
crumbly  brown  conglomerate  against  which 
the  monastery  has  been  built,  until  we 
stand  above  the  high-walled  town,  watch- 
ing the  sand  roll  over  its  golden  pagoda 
roofs  and  temporarily  blot  out  the  sun. 
Sephen  strikes  up  a  conversation  with  an 
old  man  who  is  catching  his  breath  along 
the  path  with  his  pretty  daughter.  They 
have  just  come  from  Lhasa,  too,  and  the 
first  thing  they  do  upon  reaching  Shi- 
gatse  is  to  circumambulate  the  monas- 
tery—a pretty  good  indication  of  their 
devotion.  The  old  man  is  clutching  some 
replacement  wicks  for  any  yak-butter 
prayer  lamps  he  might  see  that  need  them 
(each  pilgrim  is  an  itinerant  shrine  main- 
tenance man).  He  seems  to  know  a  lot 
about  the  Panchen  controversy. 

After  the  urn  ceremony,  he  tells  us,  the 
Chinese  candidate,  Gyaltsen  Norbu,  was 
spirited  away  to  the  10th  Panchen's  palace 
behind  the  monastery,  and  isolated  from 
public  view  for  fear  of  an  outburst  of  pop- 
ular anger.  A  curfew  was  imposed  in  the 
three  main  cities  Lhasa,  Shigatse,  and 
Chamdo.  Visas  for  Tibetan  exiles  wishing 
to  visit  their  relatives  were  denied. 

The  enthronement  took  place  on  the 
eighth  of  December.  Vultures,  the  old 
man  had  heard,  circled  over  the  monas- 
tery—an ominous  sign— and  the  boy 
seemed  hesitant  to  climb  onto  the  throne. 
Soon  afterward,  he  became  very  sick  and 
had  to  be  flown  to  Beijing  for  emergency 
treatment.  A  monk  from  an  outlying 
!1  later  tell  us  that  the  cere- 
mony ended  with  a  big  procession  to 
which  one  person  from  each  family  in 
Shigatse  wa&  ordered  to  bring  incense. 

142 


The  next  morning  we  visit  the  monas- 
tery. The  embalmed  body  of  the  10th 
Panchen  has  been  placed  inside  a  gilded, 
jewel-encrusted  stupa  and  is  no  longer  on 
display.  "There  are  many  precious  stones 
here,"  Sephen  remarks  to  a  tall  pilgrim 
circumambulating  the  stupa  behind  us. 

"Yes,  but  where  is  the  diamond?"  the 
pilgrim  replies— a  witty,  oblique  reference 
to  the  kidnapped  Choekyi  Nyima. 

Jeffrey  is  denied  permission  to  take  pho- 
tographs from  the  roof  by  a  monk  standing 
in  the  central  plaza  when  suddenly  half  a 
dozen  monks  emerge  from  a  little  side  al- 
ley. They  form  a  protective  wedge  around 
another  monk  who  is  carrying  a  little  boy, 
holding  him  high  as  if  he  were  a  bundle  of 
clothes  that  shouldn't  get  wet.  The  boy  is 
wearing  nice  street  clothes,  a  beige  woolen 
jacket  and  a  round  fur  cap,  and  he  has  a 
radiant,  arresting  face.  He  looks  at  Jeffrey 
and  smiles.  Rabgyal  whispers,  I  think  that's 
one  of  the  kids.  Jeffrey  asks  if  he  can  take 
his  picture.  The  monks'  backs  straighten, 
and  they  almost  run  with  the  boy  to  a 
Land  Cruiser  in  which  a  woman— probably 
the  boy's  mother— is  waiting.  All  this  takes 
no  more  than  15  seconds. 

It  turns  out  that  the  boy  was  one  of 
the  Chinese  runner-up  Panchens,  the  one 
from  Lhasa,  who  was  being  given  a  tour 
of  the  monastery.  He  had  been  rewarded 
with  a  tulk uship  of  his  own.  Rabgyal  dis- 
covers he  was  now  Chungbo  Rinpoche 
and  was  going  to  be  set  up  in  his  own 
monastery  in  three  days.  His  father  had 
not  wanted  his  son  to  be  a  tulku,  but,  Rab- 
gyal learned,  140,000  yuan  (about  $16,700) 
had  eventually  secured  his  blessing. 

If  Shigatse  was  tight,  Beijing  is  a  hun- 
dred times  tighter. 

Our  diplomatic  corps  is  no  help  in  ap- 
proaching the  Chinese  to  see  either  of  the 
Panchen  Lama  boys.  "It  would  ruin  our 
contacts,"  an  embassy  official  explains. 
"And  even  if  you  made  a  substantial  con- 
tact, all  you  would  get  was  a  sterile  histo- 
ry lesson.  The  Chinese  have  said  all  they 
are  going  to  say  on  this  issue.  They  main- 
tain that  they  have  had  sovereignty  over 
Tibet  since  the  13th  century,  and  that  in- 
cludes control  over  reincarnations.  It's  an 
administrative  rather  than  a  religious 
question.  There  are  national-security  prob- 
lems over  these  kids." 

His  take  on  the  Tibet  question  turns 
out  to  be  based  largely  on  a  1995  paper 
by  Professor  Melvyn  C.  Goldstein,  direc- 
tor of  the  Center  for  Research  on  Tibet  at 
Case  Western  Reserve,  whom  Robert 
Thurman  describes  as  "the  prophet  of  the 
State  Department  and  a  [expletive  delet- 
ed], who  has  done  serious  harm  to  the  Ti- 


betan cause."  Goldstein  counters  that 
"history  will  show  that  the  destructive 
role  is  being  played  by  the  naive  people 
who  think  that  one  more  cocktail  party, 
one  more  Hollywood  movie,  is  going  to 
make  any  difference  to  Tibet's  plight,  and 
who  keep  advising  Tibetans  to  hold  out, 
when  things  are  getting  worse  and  worse." 
In  his  paper  Goldstein  argues  that  Tibet's 
best  option  for  the  moment  is  to  propose 
recognizing  Chinese  sovereignty  in  ex- 
change for  a  cultural  homeland  with  reli- 
gious, linguistic,  and  ethnic  integrity. 

Not  everyone  is  so  eager  to  appease 
China  at  the  expense  of  Tibet.  The  Euro- 
pean Parliament  has  asked  to  meet  the 
Dalai  Lama's  kidnapped  soul  boy,  and 
Amnesty  International  has  complained 
that  his  detention  and  that  of  his  family 
and  60  others  since  July  are  violations  of 
their  human  rights,  to  which  the  Chinese 
Foreign  Ministry  replied  that  Choekyi 
Nyima  was  safe  in  Tibet,  but  declined  to 
give  further  details.  A  spokesman  for  the 
Religious  Affairs  Bureau  claimed  it  was 
not  involved  and  didn't  know  if  the  boy 
was  in  the  country  or  abroad. 

According  to  sources  in  Beijing,  howev- 
er, Choekyi  Nyima  is  right  here  in  the 
city,  under  house  arrest  but  well  treated, 
and  this  is  going  to  be  his  status  for  a  long 
time  to  come.  "We  have  information  that 
the  Public  Security  Bureau  has  budgeted! 
the  boy  and  his  parents  as  a  more  or  less 
permanent  fixture."  Lodi  Gyari,  the  Dalai 
Lama's  Washington -based  envoy,  tells  me. 
Jeffrey  canvases  his  contacts,  but  no  one.' 
has  a  clue  where  Choekyi  Nyima  is  or 
can  confirm  that  he  really  is  in  Beijing,  or, . 
for  that  matter,  still  alive. 

The  Chinese  Panchen,  Gyaltsen  Norbu, 
it  seems,  is  also  in  Beijing,  at  a  villa  until 
recently  inhabited  by  Chen  Xitong,  the  dis-- 
graced  ex-mayor  of  Beijing,  in  Huaroni 
County,  an  hour  out  of  town.  Chen  Xitong  \ 
was  the  highest  public  official  to  have  been  i 
caught  with  his  hand  in  the  till  since  the^1 
current  anti-corruption  campaign  was> 
launched  last  fall  to  correct  the  overexu-i- 
berant  response  to  Deng  Xiaoping's  1990  ! 
declaration  that  "to  get  rich  is  glorious." 

It  is  not  widely  known  that  the  1 0th n 
Panchen  was  married  to  a  Chinese  wom-i- 
an,  who  is  now  living  with  her  daughter  inn 
the  Tung  Zong  Bu,  the  Panchen  Lama's  > 
Palace  in  Beihai  Park,  one  of  Beijing's 
most  exclusive  residential  areas.  The  sister 
of  the  Panchen's  military  guard,  she  was* 
apparently  devoted  to  him  and  he  to  her. 
It  was  the  policy  under  Mao  to  force  celi- 
bate high  incarnates  to  marry,  in  order  to 
erode  the  religion.  Now  the  widow  report- 
edly refuses  to  vacate  the  palace  for  little 
Gyaltsen  Norbu,  which  explains  why  he  is  • 

VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  199«W 


living  in  the  ex-mayor's  villa.  Whether  this 
is  because  she  doesn't  recognize  the  boy 
as  her  husband's  true  incarnation  is  un- 
clear. A  Tibetan  scholar  in  Beijing  tells  me 
that  she  would  love  to  talk  with  me,  but  it 
would  not  be  good  for  her  to  see  foreign- 
ers at  this  time. 

But  no  matter  what  happens  with  the 
Panchen  Lama  or  with  Tibet,  there  seems 
to  be  no  stopping  the  tulku  system.  As 
more  Westerners  embrace  the  dharma, 
reincarnations  are  beginning  to  be  found 
among  them.  There's  a  Spanish  boy 
called  Lama  Osel  who  is  the  reincarna- 
tion of  Lama  Thubten  Yeshe;  a  young 
man  in  Montreal  called  Tenzin  Ary;  a 
woman  from  Brooklyn  named  Jetsunma 
Ahkon  Norbu  Lhamo;  and  half  a  dozen 
others.  A  four-year-old  half-Tibetan  boy 
from  Seattle,  Sonam  Wangdu  Lama, 
whose  American  mother  gave  him  over 
to  be  raised  by  his  previous  incarnation's 
monastery  in  Kathmandu,  was  much  in 
the  news  earlier  this  year. 

Many  monks  in  India  are  clamoring 
l  for  similar  recognition  for  their  teachers, 
so  much  so  that  the  Dalai  Lama  com- 
plained to  me  that  there  is  "too  much 
reincarnation.  If  every  geshe  [learned  holy 
man]  in  India  is  made  a  tulku  and  given 
his  own  monastery,  there  won't  be 
enough  room  for  them  all.  It  becomes 
like  social  status." 

In  the  new  Great  Game,  which  is 
about  cornering  the  world's  largest  emer- 
gent market— China— the  little  11th  Pan- 


chen Lama  is,  sadly,  an  insignificant 
pawn.  He  can  expect  no  help,  wherever 
he  is,  from  France,  which  has  stopped 
criticizing  China's  human -rights  perfor- 
mance since  signing  a  $1.5  billion  Airbus 
contract,  or  from  the  Clinton  administra- 
tion, which  unlinked  most-favored-nation 
status  from  human  rights  last  year.  Re- 
cently, Germany  gave  in  to  Chinese  pres- 
sure by  stating  that  Tibet  is  part  of  Chi- 
nese territory  and  by  withdrawing  a 
$190,000  grant  to  a  June  conference  in 
Bonn  for  Tibet  support  groups. 

Meanwhile,  the  count  of  Tibetans  ar- 
rested or  detained  for  protesting  the  ab- 
duction of  their  number-two  archangel 
keeps  rising.  On  or  about  the  22nd  of 
January,  while  Jeffrey  and  I  were  in  Bei- 
jing, 10  prisoners  who  were  being  trans- 
ferred to  a  penitentiary  400  miles  east  of 
Lhasa  threw  chili  powder  into  the  eyes  of 
their  two  guards,  then  fought  with  the 
driver.  The  truck  crashed  into  a  river,  the 
driver  was  killed,  and  the  prisoners  fled 
into  the  immensity  of  the  Tibetan  land- 
scape. Two  of  them  were  monks  who  had 
been  arrested  for  putting  up  posters  repu- 
diating the  Chinese  soul  boy.  When  last 
heard  from,  they  were  making  their  way 
to  the  Sikkim  border. 

More  bombings  have  been  reported  in 
recent  months:  one  at  party  headquarters 
in  Lhasa,  one  at  the  home  of  a  Vichy  lama 
in  Nagchu,  and  several  others.  Cranking 
up  their  anti-sabotage  operation,  the  Chi- 
nese  have  announced   that   all   pictures 


of  the  Dalai  Lama,  or  likenesses  on 
badges,  pens,  or  watches,  are  now  forbid- 
den, even  in  the  monasteries— which  led  to 
a  disturbance  on  May  6  at  Ganden 
Monastery,  30  of  whose  monks  have  tak- 
en off  for  parts  unknown.  A  June  30 
deadline  for  all  "splittists"  (pro-indepen- 
dence Tibetans)  in  hiding  to  turn  them- 
selves in  was  imposed. 

There  have  been  no  sightings  of  the 
Panchen  Lama,  but  on  June  1,  Beijing  fi- 
nally admitted  that  it  was  holding  him  in 
"protective  custody"  from  would-be  Ti- 
betan kidnappers;  it  didn't  reveal  where. 
On  May  28  the  Chinese  pretender  ap- 
peared in  a  televised  ceremony  at  Tashil- 
hunpo,  suggesting  that  he  may  have  taken 
up  residence  there. 

As  for  the  Dalai  Lama's  own  future, 
"First  I  will  investigate  if  I  should  rein- 
carnate or  not,"  he  explained.  "If  the  in- 
dications are  positive,  I  will  then  investi- 
gate the  time  and  place.  I  have  made  it 
very  clear  that  my  continuation  depends 
on  the  wishes  of  the  Tibetan  people." 
He  has  also  made  it  clear  that  if  Tibet 
were  ever  to  become  a  democracy  he 
would  abdicate  and  become  a  constitu- 
tional lama  in  whatever  incarnation  this 
occurred. 

What  about  the  Panchen  Lama?  I 
asked.  If  the  Chinese  succeed  in  manipu- 
lating the  lineage,  might  not  it  be  best  to 
phase  it  out? 

"That  would  be  up  to  the  lama  him- 
self," His  Holiness  replied.  □ 


Pittman 


(Continued  from  page  84)  Quickly,  he  gave 
Pittman  oxygen,  left  Madsen  with  her, 
and  took  Fox  to  camp,  covering  the  quar- 
ter-mile in  40  minutes.  Exhausted,  he  tried 
to  find  other  climbers  to  help.  Nobody 
would  or  could.  So  Boukreev  headed 
back  out  into  the  storm  alone.  When  he 
reached  Madsen,  he  gave  him  oxygen  and 
told  him  he  had  to  stand  up  and  walk. 
Pittman  tried  to  do  the  same.  But  she 
could  not.  "I  talked  to  her;  I  told  her  she 
needed  to  take  her  power  from  inside  her 
head  and  go,  go,  go,"  recalls  Boukreev. 

Pittman  couldn't  say  much.  "I  am 
tired,"  she  told  him.  "I  cannot." 

So  Anatoli  Boukreev  half  carried,  half 
dragged  Sandy  Pittman  back  to  camp. 

After  Boukreev  pitched  Pittman  and 

Madsen  into  the  tents,  the  barrel-chested 

Russian,  who  had  climbed  like  a  machine 

nd  never  used  oxygen,  finally  gave  out. 

Hie  couldn't  go  back  to  search  for  the 


others.  Namba,  her  down  suit  ripped  by 
the  wind,  died  not  five  yards  from  where 
Fox  and  Pittman  had  stopped.  Weathers 
had  been  found  covered  with  drifting 
snow  and  left  for  dead.  By  some  miracle, 
however,  he  awoke  from  his  near  coma 
and  staggered  into  camp  barely  alive. 
When  Beidleman  heard  the  news  about 
Namba  the  next  morning,  he  cried  for  a 
full  45  minutes,  overcome  by  guilt.  He 
and  Boukreev  had  used  every  ounce  of 
their  strength  to  save  their  clients.  But 
there  had  been  no  one  to  save  Namba. 

That  morning,  encouraged  by  Makalu 
Gau's  rescue,  Boukreev  started  to  search 
for  Fischer,  a  close  friend.  He  found  him 
frozen  in  the  snow,  his  oxygen  mask  still 
on.  No  one  will  ever  know  exactly  what 
happened,  whether  he  was  overcome  by 
the  altitude  or  simply  wrung  out  from 
weeks  of  shepherding  clients  up  and  down 
the  mountain. 

The  survivors  had  spent  an  exhausted 
few  hours  in  the  tents  on  the  South  Col,  at 
26,100  feet.  All  were  relatively  unscathed. 


Fox  had  frostbite  on  her  big  toes,  and  the 
rest  battled  mild  snow  blindness  and  mi- 
nor frostbite  on  their  faces  and  hands.  All 
were  overwrought  and  extremely  lethargic 
from  the  high  altitude.  They  had  to  get 
down  lower  as  soon  as  possible.  On  the 
way,  Beidleman  had  to  give  Pittman  anoth- 
er injection  of  dexamethasone.  "She  got 
really,  really  tired,  fished  it  out,  and  said, 
'Give  it  to  me,' "  he  recalls. 

They  spent  the  next  day  and  night  at 
Camp  3  and  all  were  edgy.  It  had  been 
here,  three  days  earlier,  that  a  Taiwanese 
climber  en  route  to  the  summit  had 
slipped  over  the  side  of  the  mountain.  It 
had  been  the  start  of  the  hell.  In  her  jour- 
nal. Pittman  had  described  hearing  the 
echo  of  his  screams  as  he  fell  into  a  deep 
crevasse.  Haunted  by  memories,  the  sur- 
vivors continued  their  harrowing  climb 
down.  Between  Camp  3  and  Camp  2  a 
Sherpa  was  knocked  unconscious  by  a 
falling  rock.  But  they  finally  reached 
Base  Camp  on  Monday,  May  13.  There 
they  heard  the  tragic  tale  of  Rob  Hall's 


/ANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


143 


Pittman 


farewell  satellite  call  to  his  pregnant  wife 
in  New  Zealand  before  he  signed  off  and 
waited  to  die  in  a  crevasse  near  the  sum- 
mit. Three  Indian  climbers  on  the  north 
side  of  the  mountain  had  also  perished. 
The  death  toll  stood  at  eight. 

Rumors  swept  the  mountain.  Rumors 
and  questions.  "Everyone  kept  try- 
ing to  put  together  the  details,"  recalls 
Fox.  "There  was  more  sorrow  than  suc- 
cess." Several  climbers  noticed  that  Pitt- 
man,  although  grief-stricken  and  upset, 
seemed  "worried  about  her  image,  her 
book."  That  night  she  held  her  first  post- 
summit  interview  with  NBC,  speaking 
via  satellite  phone  with  Tom  Brokaw,  a 
close  friend,  in  New  York.  Some  of  Fisch- 
er's friends  were  sickened  to  see  his 
team  referred  to  as  the  "NBC  Everest 
Assault"  expedition.  That  was  never  the 
official  name.  The  only  partner  NBC 
had  was  Pittman.  It  was  a  minor  detail, 
perhaps,  but  it  stung  like  salt  in  a 
wound.  "It  was  all  centric  to  her,"  re- 
calls one  disgusted  team  member.  "It's 
as  if  we  were  all  there  for  her  profit  and 
publicity." 

The  following  day,  there  was  a  memor- 
ial service  for  Fischer,  and  the  group 
talked  about  their  grief  and  guilt.  People 
were  torn  up  about  the  deaths.  Earlier 
they  had  made  a  pact  that  no  one  would 
talk  to  the  press  until  they  were  all  down 
from  the  mountain.  Pittman  ended  her 
Web  postings,  noting,  "I  need  to  feel  the 
impact  of  all  this."  They  also  agreed  that 
although  they  had  lost  their  leader  they 
had  gone  in  as  a  team  and  would  hike  out 
as  a  team.  Beidleman  said,  "Nobody 
wants  to  feel  like  they're  running  from 
any  of  this." 

But  the  next  morning,  when  the  team 
hiked  down  to  Pheriche,  the  town  below 
Base  Camp,  it  was  obvious  that  Pittman 
was  in  a  hurry  to  split.  She  pled  media 
obligations.  A  team  member  recalls,  "She 
was  worried  about  damage  control."  First 
thing  Friday,  she  chartered  a  helicopter 
to  Kathmandu  for  $2,500,  offering  a  ride 
to  Madsen  and  the  team  doctor.  Ingrid 
Hunt.  For  the  same  sum  she  could  have 
chartered  a  large  Russian  helicopter  to 
take  everyone  down. 

In  Kathmandu,  Pittman  headed  straight 
for  the  Yak  and  Yeti  Hotel,  where  she 
fielded  calls  from  the  world  press,  includ- 
ing Oprah  Winfrey.  "Can  you  believe 
Oprah  called?"  she  was  heard  to  say.  As 
she  sunbathed  by  the  pool,  Pittman  was 
easily  identifiable  to  reporters  by  her  ban- 

144 


daged  fingertips  and  the  Hermes  catalogue 
on  the  table  beside  her.  At  the  time  of  our 
telephone  conversation,  she  was  still 
hoarse  from  laryngitis,  and  broke  into  a 
hacking  khumbu  cough  caused  by  the  alti- 
tude. When  I  inquired  how  she  was,  she 
answered  with  an  impatient  "How  do  I 
sound?"  Then,  more  calmly,  she  said  she 
was  fine,  adding  that  her  injuries  had  been 
greatly  exaggerated.  She  would  be  back  in 
New  York  in  a  few  days,  and  asked  me  to 
call  her  at  her  office. 

On  Monday,  May  20,  Fischer's  team 
gathered  in  the  Yak  and  Yeti  garden  for  a 
group  picture.  Pittman,  who  had  original- 
ly refused  to  pose  for  Vanity  Fair  (saying 
she  didn't  "want  to  do  anything  to  stand 
out  from  the  group"),  arrived  fully  made 
up,  wearing  a  tight  black  miniskirt,  a 
black  blouse  with  mandarin  collar,  and 
an  elaborate  Tibetan  headdress.  The  other 
climbers,  most  of  them  casually  dressed, 
appeared  taken  aback. 

After  the  photo  shoot,  Pittman  hosted 
a  blowout  cocktail  party  in  honor  of  Fisch- 
er, who  had  looked  forward  to  the  time 
when  they  would  "line  up  the  margaritas 
and  toast  a  successful  expedition."  Pitt- 
man used  her  own  margarita  recipe  and 
hired  a  Sherpa  band,  but  the  celebration 
had  a  hollow  feeling.  "Personally,  I 
would  trade  Everest  and  every  other  sum- 
mit for  Scott's  life,"  says  Neal  Beidleman, 
his  voice  catching.  "But  you  have  to  be 
proud  of  climbing  Everest  and  getting 
back.  I  am  proud  of  everyone  on  our 
team,  notwithstanding  their  strengths  or 
weaknesses.  Everybody  summited,  sur- 
vived a  difficult  night,  and  it  was  an  in- 
credible accomplishment." 

Throughout  the  evening,  there  was  an 
almost  palpable  tension  between  Pittman 
and  some  of  her  fellow  climbers.  There 
were  those  who  felt  that  she  tried  to  keep 
her  distance  from  Beidleman  and  Bou- 
kreev,  the  men  who  had  risked  their  own 
necks  to  save  hers.  During  the  NBC  in- 
terview and  a  lengthy  background  session 
with  Newsweek  the  day  before,  Pittman 
never  mentioned  that  she  had  been  in  se- 
rious jeopardy  or  that  she  would  probably 
have  died  had  she  not  been  helped  by 
Beidleman  and  Boukreev.  In  a  subsequent 
telephone  conversation,  when  asked  about 
her  apparent  lack  of  appreciation  toward 
the  two  gentlemen  who  had  saved  her 
life,  Pittman  responded  tersely:  "Which 
two  gentlemen  is  that?" 

Journalist  Jon  Krakauer,  who  was  part 
of  the  New  Zealand  team  and  the  second 
to  summit  that  day,  filed  a  raw,  emotional 
account  of  the  tragedy  on  Outside  maga- 
zine's Internet  publication.  Krakauer.  au- 
thor of  the  best-selling  Into  the  Wild,  has 


no  doubt  that  Scott  Fischer  died  because 
he  was  exhausted  from  guiding  amateur 
climbers.  Rob  Hall  clearly  died  in  the  act 
of  rescuing  his  amateur  client.  But  Pittman 
maintains  that  there  were  no  heroes  that 
night,  that  the  guides  were  just  doing  their 
jobs,  what  they  were  paid  to  do. 

According  to  Krakauer,  the  debate 
"raises  the  question  'What  are  you  doing 
on  this  mountain  if  you  can't  get  yourself 
down?'  There's  only  so  much  you  can  ask 
of  a  guide  or  a  sherpa."  In  his  view,  guid- 
ed climbers  may  have  a  lot  of  experience, 
but  that  does  not  necessarily  translate  into 
great  ability  or  judgment.  He  emphasizes 
that  these  climbers  are  never  without 
guides— "high-altitude  baby-sitters"-  which  : 
is  very  different  from  doing  it  on  your 
own.  "You  don't  have  the  mind-set  to 
take  care  of  yourself.  You  learn  to  operate 
within  a  client  framework,  which  is  that 
other  people  are  going  to  haul  your  loads, 
other  people  are  going  to  look  after  you." 

As  the  controversy  grew  heated,  veter- 
an climbers  tried  to  make  the  point  that 
the  essence  of  mountaineering  has  always 
been  self-reliance,  consideration  for  oth- 
ers, character,  and  integrity.  "What  hap- 
pened up  there  was  terrible,  but  some 
people  came  out  looking  wonderful  andJ 
some  didn't,"  observed  a  climber  who 
knows  all  the  players  well.  "Beck  Weath- 
ers sat  on  a  rock  for  12  hours  waiting  to 
be  saved.  But  he's  a  hero  because  he's  so 
honest  about  it." 

On  May  22,  Sandy  Pittman  left  fori) 
New  York  to  be  home  for  her  son's  13th 
birthday.  One  fellow  climber  suggests 
that,  even  at  the  time  of  her  departure, 
Pittman  was  still  reeling  from  the  shock,- 
that  she  had  been  truly  humbled  by  the 
ferocity  of  the  mountain.  A  New  Zealandi 
guide  who  had  climbed  with  her  in  the 
past  laughed.  "Not  humbled,  mate,"  he 
said.  "Nothing  humbles  Sandy  Pitbull.i 
Sobered,  maybe."  For  his  part,  the  tire-> 
less  Russian  Anatoli  Boukreev  has  re-e 
mained  almost  silent  about  the  womam 
whose  life  he  saved.  But  to  fellow* 
climbers  he  has  said  wryly,  "Princess1 
Sandy.  Very  rich,  very  spoiled." 

Charlotte  Fox  thinks  it's  too  early  to  pass-: 
judgment  on  anyone  who  has  been  through 
such  an  emotional  experience.  "Sandy  isi 
a  strong  woman  and  she  is  committed,"' 
says  Fox.  "Maybe  she  doesn't  know  how> 
to  say  thank  you  for  saving  her  life." 

Three  weeks  after  the  disastrous  storm 
on  the  summit,  Sandy  Pittman  stalks 
into  the  saloon  at  Cafe  des  Artistes.  We. 
had  agreed  to  meet  for  a  drink.  A  strik- 
ing brunette  who  looks  like  a  muscular 
version  of  Jacqueline  Onassis,  the  5-foot-i 

VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  199< 


10-inch  Pittman  is  among  the  mightiest  of 
women,  and  her  personality  is  as  formi- 
dable as  her  physique.  Formally  introduc- 
ing herself  as  Sandy  Hill  Pittman,  she  en- 
cases my  hand  in  a  crushing  grip  worthy 
of  Paul  Bunyan.  Wearing  a  beige  suede 
safari  jacket  belted  over  black  pants,  she 
looks  healthy  if  a  bit  thinner  than  usual. 
Her  fingers  appear  normal,  but  she  says 
she  has  several  broken  ribs  and  is  suffer- 
ing from  pleurisy.  Tied  around  her  neck 
is  a  narrow  red  string  necklace  blessed  by 
a  lama  and  presented  to  climbers  in  a 
puja  ceremony. 

It  seems  to  bring  no  peace.  She  is  ex- 
tremely keyed  up  and  highly  animated. 
From  the  grim  set  of  her  jaw,  it  seems 
clear  that  she  has  seen  the  previous 
weeks'  headlines.  The  New  York  Post  had 
bannered  her  epic  in  bold  type:  n.y.  so- 
cialite tells:  my  hell  on  top  of  the 
world.  Even  the  reticent  New  York 
Times  had  slipped  in  a  dig.  "Everest 
Takes  Worst  Toll,"  its  front-page  story 
teased,  "Refusing  to  Become  Stylish." 
Raking  her  hand  again  and  again 
through  her  cropped  auburn  hair,  Pitt- 
man declares  herself  at  wit's  end.  She  is 
miffed,  and  perhaps  justifiably,  that  con- 
quering Everest  has  not  been  sufficient  to 
retire  her  reputation  as  a  couture-clad 
party  girl,  and  she  bristles  at  the  slightest 
suggestion  that  she  might  have  inspired 
any  of  the  unflattering  ink.  Nor  can  she 
comprehend  the  derision  engendered  by 
her  colorful  electronic  journal  entries, 
which  alternately  described  the  rigors  of 
trekking  in  Nepal  and  the  de  rigueur  lux- 
uries of  life  in  New  York.  "All  my  per- 
sonal stuff  is  packed,"  she  wrote  in  a 
breathless  dispatch  from  Central  Park 
West.  "I  wouldn't  dream  of  leaving  town 
without  an  ample  supply  of  Dean  & 
DeLuca's  Near  East  blend  and  my 
espresso  maker." 

After  talking  on  background  for  more 
than  an  hour,  Pittman  declines  a  formal 
interview.  She  says  the  subject  is  still  too 
private  and  painful.  When  i  point  out  that 
she  is  typing  as  fast  as  she  can  to  finish 
her  book,  and  note  that  she  is  planning  a 
Vogue  piece  and  has  already  given  several 
very  public  interviews  to  NBC,  her  hazel 
eyes  turn  hard.  Abruptly  glancing  at  her 
watch,  she  announces  another  pressing  en- 
gagement and  exits  hurriedly  with  the  dis- 
dainful air  of  one  convinced  that  her  ex- 
perience above  the  clouds  is  beyond  the 
comprehension  of  those  permanently  rele- 
gated to  existence  at  sea  level. 

Though  she  is  far  from  callous,  and 
her  grief  for  Scott  Fischer  and  the  others 
is  obviously  quite  real,  Sandy  Pittman  is 
genuinely  mystified  and  hurt  that  she  has 


not  gotten  a  more  triumphant  wel- 
come on  returning  home.  She  wasn't 
expecting  a  ticker-tape  parade,  but 
not  even  a  party?  "Sandy  is  unfortu- 
nately totally  self-absorbed,"  explains 
an  old  friend  who  forgives  her  for  it. 
"She  missed  signs  of  distress  in  her 
marriage.  She  sees  motherhood  her 
own  way.  She  misses  signs  that  she 
rubs  people  the  wrong  way.  She  just 
doesn't  get  it." 

It  is  also  true  that  Pittman  inspires 
much  jealousy  around  town.  "She 
has  a  lot  of  cour-    — 
age,  and  a  lot  of 
guts,  and  no  one  in 
New  York  society 
has  faced  the  kind 
of  physical   chal- 
lenge she  has,"  says 
her   friend   Jurate 
Kazickas,  a  writer 
who  has  been  to 
Everest,  and  who 
is   married   to   investmen 
banker  Roger  Altman.  "But 
I  think  there  is  an  over-the- 
top  quality  to  her  that  drives 
a  lot  of  New  Yorkers  crazy. 
She's  too  much  of  a  good 
thing— she's  good-looking, 
climbs  mountains,  drives 
motorcycles,  and  pilots  her 
own  helicopter.  Who  can  re- 
late to  that?  Who  can  pitch 
in  and  talk  to  her  about  climb- 
ing K2  at  a  dinner  party?  She  is  unique." 

Pittman  has  plenty  of  admirers,  and 
her  close  circle  of  female  friends  includes 
lifestyle  guru  Martha  Stewart  and  so- 
cialites Blaine  Trump,  Nina  Griscom, 
Sharon  Hoge,  and  Katherine  Sailor. 
"Sandy's  very  strong,  she's  another 
species,"  says  Trump,  who  is  married  to 
Donald's  brother  Robert  Trump.  She  al- 
most went  along  with  Pittman  on  the 
Everest  trip,  but  admits  her  husband 
"wasn't  very  happy  about  it."  Stewart 
also  backed  out  when  she  became  caught 
up  in  negotiations  with  Time  Warner. 
Hoge  and  Sailor,  however,  did  hike  part- 
way up  Everest.  Trump  says  they  all  felt 
utterly  confident  with  Pittman  as  their 
fearless  leader.  "I  asked  her  once  what 
would  happen  if  one  of  us  couldn't  get 
down,  and  she  said,  'No  problem.  I  can 
handle  150  pounds  over  my  shoulder.' 
She  also  said  she  could  sew  us  up." 

In  the  end,  Pittman  left  the  surgery  to 
a  doctor.  During  a  day  hike,  Sailor  fell 
over  backward  and  gashed  her  head.  The 
women  had  to  walk  three  hours  to  the  next 
camp,  where  a  doctor,  with  only  a  hut  as 


SANDYS  PIQUE 

From  top:  Sandy  Pittman  was  in 

trouble  by  the  time  she  reached  Mount  Everest's 

Hillary  Step  on  the  trip  down  from 

the  summit;  Seaborn  "Beck"  Weathers, 

a  grateful  survivor;  Scott  Fischer's 

team  included  Pete  Schoening,  Kiev  Schoening, 

Martin  Adams,  Dr.  Ingrid  Hunt, 

Charlotte  Fox.  Tim  Madsen,  Neal  Beidleman, 

Sandy  Pittman.  Anatoli  Boukreev, 

and  Lene  Gammelgaard. 


a  hospital,  put  in  six  stitches.  Sailor's  hus- 
band, public-relations  executive  Ken  Lerer, 
was  reportedly  furious  when  he  heard 
about  his  wife's  accident.  Hoge,  however, 
came  back  singing  Pittman's  praises,  telling 
spine-tingling  tales  about  her  friend's 
prowess  and  brush  with  death. 

Some  people  have  a  knack  for  courting 
controversy  wherever  they  go,  and  in 
Pittman's  case  Everest  was  no  exception. 
From  the  beginning,  she  was  a  large  pres- 
ence on  the  mountain.  Most  of  the  climb- 
ers at  Base  Camp  had  read  enough  to 
know  she  was  the  glamorous,  soon -to-be- 
ex  wife  of  a  multimillionaire.  But  she 


VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


145 


Pittman 


tended  to  advertise  her  wealth,  and  she 
made  no  secret  of  the  fact  that  she  was 
friends  with  the  powerful.  When  she  cele- 
brated her  birthday  shortly  after  arriving, 
one  of  her  E-mail  greetings  was  from 
Martha  Stewart. 

Base  Camp  is  an  incestuous  little  com- 
munity, and  there  isn't  much  to  do  besides 
climb  and  dine  out  on  gourmet  food— and 
one  another.  Pittman's  arrival  transformed 
the  village  into  Peyton  Place.  Everyone 
was  well  aware  that  David  Breashears— 
who  was  also  on  the  mountain— was  a 
friend  of  Pittman's.  They  knew  also  that 
his  estranged  wife,  Veronique,  a  pretty 
young  graphic  artist,  had  been  keeping 
company  with  Pittman's  husband  for 
some  time.  Everyone  was  also  acutely 
aware  of  whose  tents  shook  at  night,  and 
who  had  slept  with  whom  in  the  past.  It 
wasn't  long  before  the  camp  was  buzzing 
about  a  26-year-old  snowboarder  who 
was  sharing  Pittman's  sleeping  bag. 

Pittman's  reputation  from  her  previous 
two  Everest  attempts  was  already  well 
established.  People  are  still  talking  about 
the  first  time  she  arrived,  in  1993,  with 


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her  son,  then  nine,  and  a  nanny.  She  re- 
turned to  Everest  the  following  year,  on 
an  expedition  which  Vaseline  sponsored 
for  $200,000  and  which  Breashears  video- 
taped for  NBC.  This  time,  Pittman  at- 
tempted to  climb  the  Kangshung  Face, 
technically  the  most  difficult  ascent.  She 
spent  thousands  of  dollars  to  hire  four  of 
the  best  climbers  in  the  world,  but  in  the 
end  they  were  turned  back  because  of 
bad  weather.  Pittman  was  so  frustrated, 
she  tore  a  Kieselstein-Cord  gold  cross 
with  semiprecious  stones  off  her  neck 
and  hurled  it  into  the  wild  blue  yonder, 
much  to  the  horror  of  the  Sherpas,  who 
watched  what  to  them  was  a  small  for- 
tune disappear. 

After,  the  trip,  Pittman  appeared  in  a 
commercial  for  Vaseline  that  billed  her  as 
a  "world-class  climber,"  an  outrageous 
boast  that  has  been  the  subject  of  endless 
jokes.  Her  subsequent  accounts  of  the 
Kangshung  trip— including  a  lecture  she 
gave  at  the  Explorers  Club— have  made 
her  less  than  popular  within  the  communi- 
ty because  of  her  habit  of  referring  to  the 
elite  mountaineers  she  was  with  as  her 
"climbing  team,"  as  though  they  were  her 
equals  rather  than  her  guides.  Steve  Swen- 
son,  one  of  the  expert  climbers  with  her 
on  the  Kangshung  Face,  defends  Pittman 
and  argues  she  has  become  too  easy  a  tar- 
get. "We  were  fixing  all  the  ropes,  and 
she  was  following  after  us,"  he  concedes, 
"but  she  contributed  as  much  as  anyone 
to  the  trip  in  terms  of  fund-raising,  deal- 
ing with  the  sponsors  and  media  issues." 

There  is  a  long  history  of  wealthy  ama- 
teurs who  are  passionate  about  climb- 
ing, including  Texas  financier  and  oilman 
Dick  Bass  and  the  late  Disney  president 
Frank  Wells,  who  co-authored  Seven  Sum- 
mits (with  Rick  Ridgeway).  Neither  ever 
presented  himself  as  anything  but  a  begin- 
ner, and  each  gave  full  credit  to  his  guides. 
More  than  anything,  it  seems  to  be  Pitt- 
man's grandstanding  which  has  made  her 
such  a  pariah.  "I've  watched  the  media  cir- 
cus, and  I  think  Sandy  Hill  Pittman  is  a 
story  about  marketing,"  says  Jim  Clash,  a 
business  and  adventure  writer  for  Forbes 
who  climbed  Kilimanjaro  with  Scott 
Fischer  last  January.  "Sandy  is  an  amateur 
who  has  been  able  to  manipulate  the  press 
and  promote  herself  because  most  of  the 
people  she  was  talking  to  didn't  know 
much  about  climbing." 

"Some  people  climb  for  the  publicity, 
not  the  experience,"  says  David  Swan- 
son,  a  past  Explorers  Club  president  and 
former  publisher  of  Summit  magazine. 
"And  I  would  say  that  85  percent  of  the 
people  [within  the  climbing  community] 


dislike  that  sort  of  thing  and  would  not 
climb  with  that  person.  Climbing  is 
meant  to  be  elemental,  simplistic— you 
are  meant  to  respect  the  dangers  and  the 
environment.  A  movable  circus  is  not 
what  it  is  meant  to  be." 

But  that  is  exactly  how  many  climbers 
regarded  Pittman's  electronic  sideshow 
at  Base  Camp,  to  which  a  Sherpa  had 
lugged  bags  full  of  high-tech  communica- 
tions equipment  provided  by  NBC.  Be- 
fore they  left  for  Nepal,  Pittman  wrote 
everyone  on  the  team  and  told  them 
about  her  NBC  deal  and  invited  them  to  I 
participate.  Most  declined;  this  is  pre- 
cisely the  kind  of  thing  that  they  go  to 
the  mountains  to  get  away  from.  Not 
Pittman.  To  maintain  the  NBC  Web  site, 
she  would  rise  at  5:30  in  the  morning, 
and  often  be  there  working  at  9:30  at 
night,  diligently  keeping  the  journal  en- 
tries up-to-date  and  holding  chat  ses- 
sions on-line  with  New  York  luminaries 
such  as  novelist  Jay  Mclnerney.  "She 
really  worked  at  it,"  says  Charlotte  Fox. 
"I  said,  'You're  climbing  Everest  and' 
you're  doing  all  that!' " 

Pittman  was  by  far  the  busiest  camp- 
er. Scott  Fischer  was  floored  by  her  an- 
nouncement, just  two  days  before  their 
summit  bid,  when  everyone  was  lying 
low,  that  she  was  meeting  two  friends 
for  lunch  in  Pheriche.  Hoge  and  Sailor  i 
had  showed  up  with  20  Sherpas  in  tow 
and    linen    tablecloths    in    their    little 
trekking  tent.  So,  instead  of  resting  with 
her  teammates,  Pittman  hiked  five  hours  - 
down  the  mountain,  stopping  on  the  way 
to  do  an  interview  with  the  Today  show. 
She  seemed  happy  to  drop  everything 
and  play  Himalayan  hostess,  even  leav- 
ing notes  of  introduction  for  her  friends  | 
on  parchment  from  the  exclusive  station-  • 
er  Mrs.  John  L.  Strong.  All  of  this  was> 
happening   at   a    time   when   even    the: 
strongest   climbers   on  her   team   were, 
resting.  "Her  priorities  were  all  over  the: 
place,"  observes  a  climber  from  another- 
team.  Then  he  speculates,  "Those  worn-  • 
en  were  there  as  her  mouthpieces  for  lat- 1 
er.  They  would  be  so  blown  away  by » J  \ 
what  they  saw  that  they  would  go  backv 
to   New   York   and   spread   the   gospel 
about  Sandy  Hill  Pittman." 

No  one  can  say  that  Sandy  Pittman 
hasn't  worked  hard  or  seriously  com- 
mitted herself  to  building  her  prowess  as  a  i 
climber  and  sportswoman.  She  had  grown 
up  in  the  foothills  of  Northern  California, 
and  as  a  girl  walked  the  mountains  with 
her  father.  At  10,  she  started  going  on 
camping  trips.  As  a  chubby  adolescent, 
she  opted  for  backpacking  over  the  beach 


146 


VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


and  worked  as  a  junior  ski-mountaineer- 
ing guide  in  Yosemite.  She  spent  sum- 
mers white-water  rafting,  kayaking,  and 
climbing.  Her  first  big  peak  was  Disap- 
pointment in  Wyoming's  Grand  Tetons. 
When  she  got  to  the  top,  she  said  to  her- 
self, "I'm  going  to  do  this  for  the  rest  of 
my  life." 

At  the  University  of  Colorado  in  Boul- 
der, she  fell  in  love  with  Jerry  Solomon, 
now  a  sports  agent  married  to  former 
Olympic  ice-skater  Nancy  Kerrigan.  They 
eventually  transferred  to  U.C.L.A.  togeth- 
er and  Pittman  earned  a  degree  in  art  his- 
tory. They  split  a  year  later.  "She  was  al- 
ways into  climbing,  but  it  seems  to  have 
become  an  all-consuming  thing,"  says 
Solomon.  "She  was  always  an  ambitious 
person,  and  I  don't  just  mean  about 
climbing  mountains." 

Pittman  moved  to  New  York  and  got 
a  job  at  Bonwit  Teller.  Later  she  worked 
at  Mademoiselle  and  Bride's,  where  she 
was  a  beauty  editor.  Climbing  took  a 
backseat  to  her  career.  In  1979,  at  age 
24,  she  married  Bob  Pittman.  They  had 
met  on  a  flight  to  Los  Angeles  and,  ac- 
cording to  a  story  they  have  often  told, 
were  in  love  before  they  landed.  As  fate 
would  have  it,  the  plane  was  diverted  to 
San  Francisco,  so  Sandy  took  him  home 
to  meet  her  parents.  When  they  arrived 
to  find  her  folks  out  of  town,  they  report- 
edly made  passionate  love  on  the  living- 
room  floor. 

Not  long  after  the  birth  of  her  son  in 
1983,  Pittman  began  the  kind  of 
climbing  that  propelled  her  to  the  top  of 
the  benefit  circuit,  and  put  her  and  Bob 
on  the  cover  of  New  York  magazine  in 
1990  as  "The  Couple  of  the  Minute."  One 
|  thing  everyone  seems  to  agree  on  is 
that  both  Pittmans  are  brilliant  at  self- 
promotion.  Bob,  who  was  a  runner-up  to 
be  Time's  Man  of  the  Year  in  1984,  has 
been  dogged  by  controversy  for  claiming 
what  some  see  as  undue  credit  for  MTV— 
which  he  has  called  his  "crazy  idea."  The 
concept  had  been  kicking  around  for 
years,  and  many  believe  that  executives 
John  Lack  and  Tom  Freston  contributed 
just  as  much  as  Pittman,  who  went  on  to 
form  Quantum  Media  (The  Morton 
Downey  Jr.  Show)  before  moving  on  to 
Time  Warner,  where  he  was  in  charge  of 
the  Six  Flags  theme  parks.  Last  August  he 
left  entertainment  for  real  estate,  becom- 
ing chief  executive  of  Century  21.  "People 
say,  'My  god,  he's  had  glamorous  jobs,  he 
must  worship  glamour,'"  Bob  Pittman 
told  the  Los  Angeles  Times  somewhat  de- 
fensively. "But  my  close  friends  know  I 
was  only  in  it  for  the  challenge." 


In  the  80s,  the  Pittmans  seemed  the 
prototypical  high-concept  couple.  They 
bought  a  15,000-square-foot  1910  dairy 
b^rn  in  Falls  Church,  Connecticut,  and 
converted  the  place  into  a  yuppie  play- 
ground stocked  with  every  imaginable 
toy.  They  called  it  Birthday  Hill  Farm 
because  it  had  been  a  gift  from  Bob  to 
Sandy  when  she  turned  30.  She  trans- 
formed the  50 -foot  silo  that  looms  over 
the  barn  into  a  climbing  wall  and,  after 
dinner  and  drinks,  was  known  to  take 
guests  out  for  a  vertical  stroll  which  she 
calls  "the  Ultimate  Challenge."  She  built 
a  makeshift  gym  in  the  barn,  complete 
with  pulleys  and  ropes,  and  carved  out 
another  room  for  her  piles  of  moun- 
taineering gear.  At  one  point,  the  Pitt- 
mans even  housed  a  trio  of  traveling 
Sherpas  in  a  smaller  barn  out  back.  A 
tackle  room  is  filled  with  archers'  bows, 
fishing  rods  (she  fly-fishes),  and  canoes. 
"They  never  relaxed,"  gripes  a  house- 
guest.  "It's  not  my  idea  of  how  to  spend 
the  weekend." 

Sandy  Pittman— a  woman  compulsive 
enough  to  have  colored  threads  represent- 
ing each  season  (green  for  summer,  etc.) 
sewn  into  her  clothes  to  avoid  packing 
mix-ups— never  does  anything  halfway. 
She  applies  what  a  friend  describes  as  a 
"gangbusters  approach"  to  everything. 
When  she  and  her  husband  bought  a  two- 
seater  helicopter  for  commuting,  she  got 
her  pilot's  license.  When  she  planted  the 
garden  with  flowers,  she  won  blue  rib- 
bons at  the  local  fair.  When  she  decided 
to  raise  sheep,  she  asked  designer  Isaac 
Mizrahi  to  help  her  turn  the  first  year's 
fleecing  into  hats  and  mittens  for  home- 
less children.  When  she  entertained,  it 
was  mind-boggling.  Once,  she  bused  100 
guests  from  New  York,  stocked  canoes 
with  coolers  filled  with  juice  and  muffins, 
and  arranged  a  pig  roast  on  the  front 
lawn.  Hot-air  balloonists  took  people  for 
rides  over  the  fields. 

This  past  October,  the  Pittmans  threw 
one  of  their  famous  parties,  with  50 
guests  dining  under  an  elaborately  em- 
broidered Tibetan  tent.  On  the  menu 
were  yak  stew  and  Sherpa  tea.  In  atten- 
dance were  the  couple's  country  friends— 
the  Brokaws,  Lerers,  and  others.  "Every- 
thing was  beautifully  done  and  so  taste- 
ful, as  always,"  recalls  Jurate  Kazickas, 
"so  it  was  a  real  shock  to  hear  they  split 
up  just  a  few  weeks  later." 

Bob  Pittman  reportedly  moved  out  a 
few  days  before  Halloween,  quitting  their 
Central  Park  West  apartment,  which  is 
crammed  with  artifacts  from  her  far- 
flung  travels.  She  told  friends  that  it 
came  as  a  complete  shock,   saying,   "I 


don't  know  what's  gotten  into  him."  He 
told  friends  that  there  had  been  signs  for 
a  long  time,  but  that  she  never  noticed. 
She  was  gone  all  the  time.  "Enough  is 
enough,"  he  said. 

Ironically,  it  had  been  Bob  Pittman 
who,  in  the  mid-80s,  encouraged  his  wife 
to  find  something  meaningful  to  do.  "It 
was  he  who  turned  my  head  around,"  she 
once  acknowledged. 

But  even  her  friends  agree  that  Sandy 
Pittman's  single-minded  dedication  to  her 
avocation  complicated  her  relationship 
with  her  husband.  "A  lot  of  people  look 
at  mountain  climbing  as  discretionary, 
but  Sandy  looks  at  this  as  her  job,"  says 
Nina  Griscom,  adding,  "But  in  a  mar- 
riage, it's  hard  when  someone  finds  out 
who  they  are  in  the  middle." 

On  Sunday,  June  9,  a  private  memori- 
al service  was  held  for  Scott  Fischer 
at  Kiana  Lodge,  near  Seattle,  Washing- 
ton. Most  of  Fischer's  team,  as  well  as 
the  Sherpas,  came  to  pay  tribute  to  their 
fallen  leader.  Sandy  Pittman  arrived  with 
Todd  Harris,  a  senior  producer  at  NBC's 
on-line  interactive  service  who  designed 
Pittman's  Everest  Web  site.  After  every- 
thing that  had  happened,  she  had  little 
time  for  Beidleman  or  Boukreev.  There 
were  photographers  everywhere. 

At  the  ceremony,  the  Sherpas  chanted 
a  Buddhist  prayer,  and  Fischer's  closest 
friends  recalled  his  love  of  the  moun- 
tains. Neal  Beidleman,  so  thin  he  almost 
looked  frail,  told  the  mourners  that  his 
late  friend's  body  still  rests  on  Everest, 
"the  place  he  thought  the  most  beautiful 
in  the  world."  Beidleman  had  saved  his 
friend's  engraved  expedition  knife,  found 
in  his  pack,  and  entrusted  it  to  Fischer's 
two  children,  Andy,  nine,  and  Katie 
Rose,  five,  passing  on  the  legacy  of  their 
father.  Then  Fischer's  wife,  Jeannie 
Price,  his  parents,  and  other  family  mem- 
bers released  a  cloud  of  butterflies  into 
the  wind. 

For  the  survivors,  it  is  time  to  move 
on,  though  the  majesty  and  fury  of  the 
world's  highest  mountain  will  never  leave 
them.  Most  intend  to  keep  climbing.  Oth- 
ers will  follow.  The  Mountain  Madness 
company  says  that  it  is  planning  no  Ever- 
est trips  in  the  near  future,  but  reports 
that  business  is  booming.  Since  the 
tragedy  the  company  has  been  besieged 
with  calls  about  future  expeditions.  Pitt- 
man will  certainly  continue  her  exploits. 
"Sandy  is  definitely  a  driven  person," 
says  Fox.  "But  no  matter  how  controver- 
sial she  is,  she  stood  on  the  top  of  that 
mountain,  and  no  one  can  ever  take  that 
away  from  her."  □ 


VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


147 


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Pages  86-87:  Kym  Canter  for  Butler-Reghanti. 
Pages  96-97:  Kyra  Sedgwick's  Vivienne 
Westwood  Gold  Label  dress  by  special  order 
from  Barneys  New  York  and  Bergdorf  Good- 
man, both  in  NYC;  for  Cartier  ring,  call  800- 
CARTIER,  Fred  Leighton  necklace  from  Fred  Leigh- 
ton,  NYC;  George  Cortina  for  Ivy  Bernhard. 
Pages  112-18:  Lee  W  Moore  for  Visages  Style. 
Page  125:  Sir  Hardy  Amies  styled  by  Ray 
Watkins. 

Beauty  and  llniiiiiiiiiu 

Cover:   Matthew  McConaughey  groomed 
with   products  from   Calvin    Klein   Cosmetics; 
Ray  Allington  for  Smashbox  Beauty. 
Page  14:  See  credits  for  pages  96-97. 
Page  18:  Bottom,  see  credits  for  cover. 
Page  24:  Top,  grooming  by  Kelley  Quan  for 
Sally  Harlor. 


Page  54:  Andrew  Sullivan's  grooming  by 
Jacqueline  Colligan  for  Elizabeth  Watson,  Inc. 
Page  63:  Alison  Elliott's  hair  styled  with 
Sebastian  Laminates  Gel.  All  makeup  from 
Aveda.  On  her  eyes,  Velvet  Powder  Eye 
Shadow  in  Moon;  on  her  lips,  Fresh  Essence 
Lip  Color  in  Seashell.  John  Setaro  for  Celes- 
tine; Wendy  Ann  Rosen  for  Cloutier. 
Page  68:  LeRoy  Neiman's  grooming  by 
Kate  Best  for  Trilise. 

Pages  74-79:  See  credits  for  cover. 
Pages  86-87:  Joaquin  Cortes's  grooming 
by  James  Kaliardos  for  Visages. 
Pages  96-97:  Alberto  Guzman  for  Bumble 
&  Bumble;  Brigitte  Reiss-Andersen  for  Frederic 
Fekkai  Beaute. 

Page  113:  Jeffrey  Wright's  wig  designed 
by  Yuseff;  hair  by  Yuseff;  makeup  by  Jennifer 
Aspmall. 

Pages  114-15:  Benicio  Del  Toro's  and 
Michael  Wincott's  hair  by  John  Setaro  for 
Celestine  David  Bowie's,  Chuck  Pfeifer's, 
and  Elina  Lowensohn's  hair  by  Yuseff  Dennis 
Hopper's  hair  by  Daniel  Howell  for  Cloutier. 
Parker  Posey's  hair  by  Tony  Lucha  for  Jed 
Root.  Parker  Posey's  makeup  by  Helene 
Andersson  for  Ivy  Bernhard;  all  other  makeup 
by  Jennifer  Aspinall. 

Page  116:  Christopher  Walken's  grooming 
by  Jennifer  Aspinall.  Tatum  O'Neal's  hair  by 
Yuseff;  makeup  by  Jennifer  Aspinall. 
Page  117:  Claire  Forlani's  and  Michael 
Chow's  hair  by  Daniel  Howell  for  Cloutier; 
makeup  by  Jennifer  Aspinall. 
Page  150:  Jack  Germond's  grooming  by 
Kate  Best  for  Trilise 

Photographs  and  Mjsdjany 

Page  40:  From  Culver  Pictures. 

Page  46:  From  the  Bentley  Historical  Library, 
University  of  Michigan. 
Page  48:  From  Life  magazine,  ©  by  Time  Inc. 
Page  50:  From  U.P.I./Corbis-Bettmann. 
Page  57:  Bottom,  courtesy  of  the  Gap. 
Page  58:  Left,  from  Black  Star. 
Page  66:  Top,  photograph  from  the  Hulton 
Deutsch    Collection.    Bottom    left,    by    Peggy 
Sirota/Outline;  right,  by  Kwaku  Alston. 
Pages  80-81:   Far  left,   by  Sonia   Mosko- 
witz;  inset,  right,  by  Neal  Beidleman/Woodfin 
Camp   &  Associates;   others  by  Scott   Fisch- 
er/Woodfin  Camp  &  Associates. 
Page  82:  Left  and  bottom,  by  Scott  Fischer/ 
Woodfin  Camp  &  Associates;  center,  by  Neal 
Beidleman/Woodfin  Camp  &  Associates. 


Page  83:  Left  and  center,  by  Neal  Beidle- 
man/Woodfin Camp  &  Associates. 
Pages  84-85:  Large  photograph  and 
inset,  center,  from  DMI;  inset,  second  from 
right,  by  Marina  Gamier;  other  insets  by 
Mary  Hilliard. 

Pages  86-87:  Location  production  by  the 
Stevens  Group. 

Page  97:  Chair  courtesy  of  George  Smith, 
NYC 

Page  99:  From  Xinhua/Gamma  Liaison. 
Page   101:  Top,  from  Life  magazine,  ©  by 
Time  Inc.,  right,  from  U.P.I./Corbis-Bettmann. 
Page  103:  Inset  from  Xinhua/Gamma  Liaison. 
Pages  106-7:  From  Black  Star. 
Pages  108-9:  Courtesy  of  the  Staley  Wise 
Gallery,  ©  by  Horst. 

Pages  110-11:  Courtesy  of  the  Staley  Wise 
Gallery.  Left  and  bottom  center,  ©  by  the  Conde 
Nast  Publications  Inc.;  others  ©  by  Horst. 
Page  1 14:  Painting  courtesy  of  the  collection 
of  Stephane  Janssen,  ©  1996  by  the  Artists 
Rights  Society  (A.R.S.),  NY.C./ADAGP,  Paris. 
Page  115:  David  Bowie's  wig  courtesy  of 
the  Andy  Warhol  Museum 
Page    117:   Inset,   top,   by   Eric   Liebowitz/ 
Miramax  Films. 

Page  119:  Painting  courtesy  of  Galerie  Sho 
Contemporary  Art,  Tokyo,  ©  1 996  by  the  Artists 
Rights  Society  (A.R.S.),  NY.C./ADAGP,  Paris. 
Pages  120-21:  Left,  painting  from  the  col- 
lection of  the  National  Gallery  of  Scotland, 
Edinburgh;  right,  painting  from  the  collection  of 
the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston,  Bequest  of 
William  A.  Coolidge;  both  transparencies  from 
the  National  Gallery  of  Canada. 
Pages  122-23:  Painting  from  the  Museum 
of  Fine  Arts,  Springfield,   Massachusetts,  the 
James  Philip  Gray  Collection 
Pages  124-25:  Left  and  inset,  courtesy  of 
Hardy  Amies  Ltd. 

Page   127:  Top,  courtesy  of  Hardy  Amies 
Ltd  ;  bottom,  from  Hamiltons  Photographers. 
Pages    128-29:   All   from    Hamiltons   Pho- 
tographers; left  and  inset,  ©  by  the  Conde 
Nast  Publications  Ltd. 

Pages  130-31:  Large  photograph  from  Hul- 
ton Deutsch;  inset  from  Hamiltons  Photographers. 
Page    133:    Top,    from    Archive    Photos/ 
Express  Newspapers;  third  row,  left,  from  Pop- 
perfoto;  all  others  by  Tim  Graham/Sygma. 
Page  135:  From  Homes  &  Gardens/Robert 
Harding  Picture  Library. 
Page  141:  Both  from  Sipa  Press. 
Page   145:  Top  and  center,  from  Woodfin 
Camp  &  Associates. 


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148 


VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


Si 


LEO    %JV    July  23-August  22 

It  would  be  grand  to  scale  the  Himalayas,  speak  at  Oxford,  and  then  cruise 
over  to  Libya  for  a  summit  meeting.  Such  a  trip  would  help  you  live  out 
your  fantasies  of  adventure  and  self-importance.  And  you  could  doubt- 
less accomplish  it  if  only  it  didn"t  entail  leaving  the  house,  which,  oddly 
enough,  often  presents  huge  obstacles  for  many  members  of  your  sign.  Leos 
are  full  of  contradictions  like  that.  A  9th-house  Saturn  can  now  illustrate 
for  you  many  of  the  strange  twists  and  turns  that  make  up  the  Leo  mind. 
Relax.  You  don't  necessarily  need  a  cat  scan.  Just  try  thinking. 

VIRGO      \*Jr     August  23September  22 

Even  with  Jupiter  in  your  5th  house  (which  should  improve  the  most  ail- 
ing love  life),  there  may  be  a  few  emotional  problems  that  affect  your 
social  existence.  That  is  no  reason  for  anybody  to  think  for  one  minute 
you're  not  alive  and  raring  to  go.  It's  just  that  you  have  high  standards 
and  better  things  to  do  than  run  around  chasing  the  last  hot  person  to 
slither  by  in  tight  jeans.  Nonetheless,  Virgos  are  not  all  sexless  shop- 
keepers with  minds  only  Kafka  could  love.  You're  every  bit  as  full  of 
desire  as  anyone  walking  the  streets  of  Hollywood,  California. 


*4± 

AQUARIUS    mm^    January  20-February  18 

At  this  particular  moment  in  your  history,  you  don't  feel  much  like  talk- 
ing. With  the  ruler  of  your  12th  house  going  retrograde  in  your  3rd, 
you've  had  it  up  to  the  eyeballs  with  words.  In  truth,  right  now  you 
don't  really  care  how  critical  people  are  of  your  communication  prob- 
lem (what  problem?).  If  somewhere  in  your  life  there  is  love  or  a  drop 
of  imagination  left— and  don't  be  cynical,  there  is— don't  talk.  Do  it!  At 
this  point  what  does  a  stupid  little  thing  like  rejection  mean?  What  are 
you  waiting  for,  for  God's  sake,  an  engraved  invitation? 


PISCES 


X 


February  19-March  20 


The  fact  that  people  are  talking  about  you  is  not  news.  You've  inspired 
gossip  since  you  hit  puberty.  But  the  latest  rumors— that  you've  become 
obsessed  with  money  and  who  makes  what— are  disturbing.  What  has  got- 
ten into  you?  Even  if  Saturn  is  in  your  2nd  house,  is  that  any  reason  for 
you  to  forget  your  vows  of  spiritual  perfection?  Have  you  forsaken  your 
path  to  enlightenment  just  because  the  U.S.  Treasury  has  printed  a  new 
hundred-dollar  bill?  For  shame!  Let's  just  hope  that  the  Dalai  Lama 
doesn't  hear  about  this  or  you  are  in  big  trouble! 


LIBRA    «£»    September  23-October  23 

Ah.  those  delightful  little  summer  excursions!  Positively  enchanting.  And 
so  conveniently  diverting.  What  delicious  lightness  they  add  to  your  life- 
like the  freshest  fruity  sorbet  after  an  entree  of  beef  Wellington.  What's 
the  beef?  Simply  the  retrograde  of  Saturn  in  your  solar  7th  house,  which 
gives  you  acid  indigestion  the  moment  the  word  "marriage"  is  even 
thought,  much  less  uttered.  But  let's  have  no  dark  thoughts  when  there 
are  picnic  baskets  to  pack  and  Japanese  lanterns  to  dance  under  of  a 
I  summer  evening.  Just  be  sure  not  to  breathe  the  m-word. 


7U* 


SCORPIO     \  1  V f    October  24-November  21 

Stop  working  right  this  minute!  You  are  not  a  carpenter  ant.  Repeat:  You 
are  not  a  carpenter  ant.  The  machine  you  have  been  trying  to  turn  your- 
self into  needs  servicing.  Don't  even  think  about  your  career.  Besides,  if 
there's  anything  worse  than  being  fired,  it's  having  a  job  you've  de- 
stroyed by  squeezing  every  bit  of  creativity  out  of  it.  The  message  from 
Saturn  is  recharge.  Of  course,  you  still  need  to  exercise  some  restraint. 
If  this  were  the  70s  and  you  were  in  your  20s.  you  could  have  a  swing- 
ing time  now.  But  it's  not.  Don't  go  too  crazy. 


ARIES       \       March  21-April  19 

The  wisest  thing  to  do  right  now  is  ignore  the  mad  buzz  that's  going  on 
all  around  you.  Otherwise,  your  thirst  for  human  contact  (which  some 
tongue  waggers  would  call  your  desire  to  have  affairs  with  more  than 
one  person  at  a  time)  will  interfere  with  your  search  for  peace,  securi- 
ty, and  tranquillity  this  summer.  The  real  issue  with  the  retrograde  of 
Saturn  in  your  sign  is  identity.  In  your  busy  comings  and  goings,  you 
seem  to  be  oddly  absent.  For  all  the  laughter  and  ringing  phones,  deep 
inside  there  seems  to  be  nobody  home.  Hello?  If  you're  there,  pick  up! 

TAURUS    G   April  20-May  20 

Rich  or  poor,  all  Tauruses  are  enjoying  a  moment  of  luxury.  That's  nat- 
ural when  Venus  goes  direct  in  your  2nd  house.  Strangely,  though,  as  ex- 
cited as  you  get  when  you  open  an  envelope  and  there's  a  check  inside, 
it  no  longer  gives  you  the  thrill  it  once  did.  As  the  ruler  of  your  9th 
house  stations  itself  in  your  12th,  you're  beginning  to  identify  with  the 
unfortunate  souls  of  this  world:  forgotten  people,  disappointed  executives, 
old  soldiers,  former  glamour  queens— in  fact,  old  queens  of  all  kinds.  (The 
current  British  monarch  is  a  Taurus.) 


SAGITTARIUS    «JT7"    November  22-December  21 

When  you  stop  to  think  how  many  favorable  elements  have  to  come  to- 
gether before  deals  are  made,  you  get  exhausted  before  you  even  start. 
Normally  you  should  be  jumping  up  and  down  with  glee  right  now.  With 
Venus  going  direct  in  your  7th  house,  people  are  wildly  attracted  to  you. 
In  fact,  they're  coming  out  of  the  woodwork.  The  problem  is  that  with 
Pluto  still  retro  in  your  sign  you  can't  be  around  anybody  for  longer  than 
five  seconds  before  you  get  bored  and  tune  out.  and  that  makes  it  hard 
to  link  up  in  any  significant  way.  Go  for  quickies  now. 


>5 


CAPRICORN  \J  December  22-January  19 
Work  and  health  should  be  going  well,  and  if  you're  pure  of  heart,  you 
can  be  cooking  right  along.  Your  ruling  planet,  though,  is  turning  retro- 
grade in  your  4th  house.  This  is  the  part  where  you  bore  the  hell  out  of 
your  friends  by  going  on  about  the  threat  of  homelessness  (or,  if  you're 
an  alien,  deportation).  What's  to  become  of  you?  You  can  spend  the  next 
two  years  trembling,  or  you  can  live  like  the  rest  of  us,  knowing  that 
around  any  corner  a  sand-filled  sock  could  be  waiting.  Your  assignment: 
every  morning  sing  "Que  Sera,  Sera"  in  the  shower. 


GEMINI    ^\  May  21-June  21 

People  find  you  positively  delightful  and  interesting  right  now.  You  can 
even  tell  them  off  without  hurting  their  feelings.  That's  fun.  It's  not  often 
that  Venus  makes  a  direct  station  in  your  sign,  so  flirt  your  pants  off  and 
make  the  best  of  a  fabulous  moment.  Career?  Because  you're  currently  on 
a  path  of  personal  discovery,  your  career  per  se  is  not  exactly  what's  hap- 
pening. You've  got  to  go  your  own  way.  That  means  you  can  no  longer 
play  ball  with  the  party  if  you  have  to  drink  the  candidate's  bathwater. 
Uh-oh.  You  might  have  to  go  it  alone?  Teeth  chatter  at  the  thought. 


CANCER  ^JT  June  22-July  22 
Instead  of  wasting  time  scheming  and  obsessing,  you  should  be  lolling 
around  on  a  beach,  sneaking  peeks  at  oiled  bodies  from  under  your  um- 
brella. With  Saturn  in  your  10th  house,  though— that's  the  Joan  Crawford/ 
Bob  Dole  configuration  you  can't  seem  to  quit  politicking  in  your  var- 
ious relationships.  Can't  you  take  even  a  tiny  breather  from  your 
overblown  sense  of  responsibility  for  saving  (some  would  say  controlling) 
the  world?  At  the  very  least  you  should  take  this  opportunity  to  do  laun- 
dry, which,  if  you  do  insist  on  going  public,  had  better  be  clean. 


VANITY  FAIR/ AUGUST  1996 


149 


mm  StuoS 


r**Fr"*~  ' 


Jack 
Germond 

Nineteen  ninety-six  marks  the  10th 

presidential  campaign  that  Jack  Germond 

has  covered.  This  month  the  ultimate 

boy  on  the  bus — who  famously  moonlights  as 

The  McLaughlin  Groups  resident 

moderate — shares  some  hard-boiled  wisdom 

in  V.F's  Proust  Questionnaire 


What  is  your  idea  of  perfect  happiness? 

Sitting  on  the  porch  in  West  Virginia  with  Alice  (my  wife), 
watching  the  Shenandoah  River  roll  by. 

Which  living  person  do  you  most  admire? 

Gorbachev. 

What  is  the  trait  you  most  deplore  in  yourself? 

Sloth. 

What  is  the  trait  you  most  deplore  in  others? 

Moral  certitude. 

What  is  your  greatest  extravagance? 

Food  and  drink. 

What  do  you  consider  the  most  overrated  virtue? 

Piety. 

On  what  occasion  do  you  lie? 

When  it  is  necessary  and  harmless. 

What  do  you  dislike  most  about  your  appearance? 

Where  should  I  start? 

Which  living  person  do  you  most  despise? 

No  one  is  worth  despising. 

What  is  your  greatest  regret? 

The  steady  and  apparently  irrevocable  decline  in  the 
political  system. 

If  you  could  change  one  thing  about  yourself,  what  would  it  be? 

I  wish  I  had  more  self -discipline  about  things  other  than 
my  work. 

What  do  you  consider  your  greatest  achievement? 

Getting  paid  for  more  than  40  years  to  be  a  reporter,  which 
I  would  have  done  for  nothing. 

If  you  were  to  die  and  come  back  as  a  person  or  thing, 
what  do  you  think  it  would  be? 

A  ward  leader  in  Boston  or  Chicago. 

If  you  could  choose  what  to  come  back  as,  what  would  it  be? 

Center  fielder  for  the  Yankees. 

What  is  the  quality  you  most  like  in  a  man? 

Intelligence  and  tolerance. 

What  is  the  quality  you  most  like  in  a  woman? 

Intelligence  and  great  haunches. 

What  do  you  most  value  in  your  friends? 

Their  willingness  to  accept  my  flaws. 

Who  are  your  favorite  writers? 

C.  P.  Snow,  Arthur  Miller,  Mark  Harris,  James  Lee  Burke. 

Who  is  your  favorite  hero  of  fiction? 

Arthur  Winner  of  By  Love  Possessed, 
by  James  G.  Cozzens. 

What  is  it  that  you  most  dislike? 

Sanctimonious  people  and  broccoli. 

How  would  you  like  to  die? 

Quietly  with  a  big  winning  exacta  ticket  in  my  pocket. 

What  is  your  motto? 

The  next  best  thing  to  a  winning  day  at  the  track  is  a 
losing  day  at  the  track.  /X\ 

VANITY  FAIR /AUGUST  1996 


BHOOfi